Charles E W Bean, Diaries, AWM38 3DRL 606/116/1 - June - September 1918 - Part 8

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We sat down too an d watched. Odd men and some stretcher bearers 

were cr ossing the field on the right of us - the flat bet ween 

u s and the last cottages and gardens in--Harbonnieres;
and sometimes the Germ an wh izzbangs would bang in the garden,
sometimes of the f lat, sometimes behind a scrub of young willows - 

a sort of plantat ion, in front of us. The working party
went on. I notic ed how the scattered traffic always seemed natu rally

to choose xxxxxxxxxxx a direction where there were
fewest sh ells, as if by in stinct. The same whizzbang began
following ou r carry ing party, along - pecking after them.
It did not hit any . We took a line S. of the copse and
after crossin g a slightly sun ken road found ourselves coming
upon some old trench es, and a road, and what looked like the
1 ittl e Halt e or station of a country railway. A German motor
waggon wa s standing there abandoned - but I had not time to
inspect it ; f or away over the plain--to our right - by the
right of a to wn xxxxxxxx with a square church and red brick
towe r (we too k it to be LIHONS but it was ROSIERES) along a
t r ee lined r oad or else across the plain beside it were
moving fast a line of d ot s which were certainly mounted men.
They were m ovin g fast with the dust streaming up behind them.
Fer along, the road beh ind them - to our right rear - were
coming files of g un s, art illery limbers - all sorts of
transport movi ng across t h e plain south of--Harbonnieres .
But it was the cavalry that excited us. I had never
seen cavalry advancing at a trot or gallop before. We ran to
the edge of the old trenches. An Australian was lying dead in
the road and a German -Mu rdoch said- a little further up it.
We got the glasses onto the cavalry. They were trotting - and
they soon bec ame d ifficult to p ick up; anyway other matters
of in terest, w re opening up. Straight E of us was a line of
low b uilding s or bivouacs. A few of our men, were moving about,
them. We wer e an xious to see our infantry in action so we went
straigh t on making towards the left of the town. A Dump was
burning in the far distance - I do not know how far away -
to the right of the town but-ever so far beyond it. We wonder-
if it was ou r c avalry or the Germans who had set it on fir--e-
or if it might not be away down at Roye or where the French
were attacking at the S. of the salient.
We were making for the town (abt 2 miles off) across
the slig htly u ndulating grass xxx flats when we passed --close
to the bi vo u acs mentioned ab ove. They, were most elaborat ely
sunken - only the roofs sticking our of the ground. It was t he
first time we realised how our planes have sent the Germans
underground. (I heard afterwds that they were a divisionsl
headquarters - and that old Pompey Elliott had pushed his
headquarters up there if we had only looked in). A little way
from them was - in an enclosure with a silver grey camouflage
of sacking on wire netting  - a wooden building which seemed
to be a bandstand. Th ere were still shavings on the floor of
it. What a bandstand could be doing here did not puzzle me
so mu ch at the time - I assumed it was for the recreation of
the troops bivo uacked here. But someone suggested afterwds
that it was a meteorological stat ion..
(Germ an prisoners told me that this was a regimental
H qrs-the prisoner s who are at this moment digging me a camp
say that they were put in f ront of it on this day as a guard
for regimental hdqrs.Th ey had been driven out of Vauvillers
b y our cavalry in the day and had dug in in rifle pits in front
of it (S) during, the night.)
Two men of the 5 7th Bn whom I was surprised to see
here told u s that they xexx had attacked here this morning.
The 15th Bdehad attacked and had met little opposition till
th ey r eached this position. T hen a couple of m.gs from a
corner of a bivou ac at the SE end of the camp held them up.
They wer e chec ked in front for a xxxxxx time; but the
5 8th ( I think they said) had by then worked round the copse
on the left, and were beginning to take the Germans in flank.
Th e Germans i n fr ont of the 5 7th either began to run in as
prisoners with their hands up, or to run away. Some of those
 

65
who ran were shot, annd ther e were about a dozen or 20 lying
dead within 200 or 300 yards. N. of this place we later passed
the ri flepits in the ground where they had been during the
night with their clothing scatt er ed around and several lying
From her we could s ee men walking about a road or a
line of trenches about 800 yards away from us. A wounded man of
the 8th Bn passed us and s aid that the battalion was on ahe ad.
I thought that I could see the lines of men in the open beneath
a hill or swelling, on the horizon. It was hard to say without
the telescope if they, were troops or banks. (I fancy, they were
really the old t renches of the Somme front - the beginning
of the Fr ench xxxxxxxxxxx communicationntrenches and rear
area. But we did not realise this at the time.)
We walked acr oss to the rex men in front. They were really
in the ditch of a road- in little pits this side of the road
edge. Th ere was an arti llery, officer there - one of the 1st
Divn and one of the 2nd. Most of the men - about twenty - were
u nder cover, in the pit s so I didnt like to walk about too much
for fear it might later, dr aw shelling on the place. We found
Col.Mitchell and the Hqrs of the 8th Bn there. Mitchell told
Mu rdoch th at the 8th Bn h ad been held up a bit - they were
in "the Wood" on the r ight and that they were presently going
to attack the w ood on the left. Which "the wood" was I didnt
quite understand. From where we stood there seemed to be two
woods - one on the right nearer to Rosieres, withna white boarded
c ottage in fr ont of it; the other on the top of the hill (to
the right) a thicker wood, this. There was a green stretch of
h illtop between them. We went on about 500 yards and then got
into an old xxxx outpost trench - rested our xxxxxx telescopes
on the parapet on an old ammunition box; and had a goo d
look.
xxxxxxxxxxxxx Below the wood on the left, and close
up to it, was an old t re nch or bivouac system with a branch
r unning up t owa rds the left wood (whichwe afterwds found-
next day- to be Crepy Wood) At the head of one of these saps
I saw an Austr alian - at the end of the branch running towards
the wood. Later I saw a xxxx a f ew others apparently passing up
towards the wo od at this point.
I could see no Aust ralian in front of this. But away to
the right , in the green patch between the two woods, there
ran down the h ill a line of dugout shelters, with a road
wi nding fr om the right hand wood down through the lower end
of the s helters and acr oss it. The shelters evidently ended
in a trench at the lower end. Ou r men were in there - both in
the shelters and the trench . But they cannot have been far ther,
I think. For, later, whenever a man crossed a corner of the
green patch in fr ont of the shelters, to get into them, as
several did, they almost always r an- or ducked low.
A Ger man present ly r an across from the Wood on the right
to the shel ters, h olding bo th his hands up. He must have
been running in to surr ender. They let him come and he got in
all right.
On the top of the hill, against the lower edge of the wood
on the left I n oticed a speckled green and grey object. I looked
h ard. It was a G erman g unshield. The gun was facing almost
our way, the barrel foreshortened. Presently to the right of it
on the edge of the wood I saw another gunshield - this gun was
pointing up in the air. On the top of the green-slope between
the t wo woods were t wo mor e g uns - one pointing in the ai r,
another po inting fairly low towards -- the right (SW).
Mit chell had told Murdoch that xxxxxxxxxx some German guns
firing point blank had done a lot of damage- and been holdiing
up our advance. I took it, that these were the guns (but afte rwards 

we heard that the gu ns whrich were most obnoxious were
four pipsqu eak s, much closer to us, in a wood around a bit of
xxxxxxxx a shallow quarry on the left - not so far from the
German C asu alty Cleari ng station whose tents we saw on the
 

66
plain on our left front. Rogers who had been with Gilmour up
the other side of th is C.C.S. -to the left of it as we were
to its right- told us this) the-same night when I saw him).
We waited for the attack to start. Presently Mitch ell
and an orderly, walked past us going up towards the C.C.S.
Next, we saw men - possibly 20 of them - out in the
open beyond the tr ench at the foot of the hill. They were in
open order going aslant towards our right front - about opposite
the wh ite wood building in the righthand wood. There were tw.
or three knocked out tanks on the plain in front of us, and one
quite close on our r ight.I think 5 tanks altogether. They ha d
all been hit by, direct fire f rom the German guns. One of these
tanks was xxxxx almost at the foot of the hill a little right 

of the white b uilding , and it was giving out a lot of filmy
blue smoke makin g it very hard to see.I suppose it was now about
6 pm and the line of men was going out a little to the right of 

the tank and this side of it, i f I remember right. Then we saw
another lot advancing near the first lot in the same manner -
going towards the h ill through the long grass at the foot
of the hill. Tx Presently, we noticed these sections running.
I think Mu r doch said at first that they were coming
towards us - but a look thr oug h the telescope showed that
they were go ing the other way. And when they began to run we
realised that they were making this advance by section rushes.
Th ey must be un der pretty heavy fire. One section would
scramble up, run thirty yards and fling itself down. Then th e
n ext would up and do the same and lie down by the first. Presently
the first would go on in another rush. Then we saw another
line of men f iling, out to the right of these along a tren ch
or road, till they were xxxxxxxxxx nearly opposite the
r ight hand end of the Wood - wh ere there was a red roofed
cottag e which next day I found to be the LIHONS "Halte". It
was really a long way fu rther back. The second line of men
presently t ur ned to it s left and began to move up the hill
on the right of the first lot. For some tine they simply
walked with their rifles slu ng over their shoulders. But presently

they xxxxxxxxxx began to run like the first lot. Behind
the first lot, there was now advancing a second line - possib ly
20 strong, who were walking with their rifles slung. While
the front line kept on charg ing forward in its little rushes
with rifle grasped in both hands across the chest, and bayonets
flashing everynow and then against the darker grean or grey
of the h i 11, the second line walked very quietly. One small
party, of three or four men seemed to be by itself, and it
settled down into the grass at one time; and I took it to be
a Lewis g un cov ering the advance.
I constant ly looked at the guns on the hilltop
to see if t hey were flashing. Some shells were bursting about
a road or trench, part way down the slope from the wood -
but they may have been ours. If not, they were some gun fro m
the left flank. The xxxx guns behind us were putting shrapnel
onto the face of the wood, Gradually this worked away and fell
well into the t rees or beh ind them.
From in fr ont of the wood, not far from the wooden
h ouse I saw a man get up and walk to the left slantwise up the
h ill - qu ietly . He was a G erman. He reached a low wooden
fen ce(probab ly really the back of some xxxxxx trench bivou acs
or shelters) at the left hand edge of the wood. I could see no
one at all movi ng around the guns.I dont think they were firing
though we did imagine that one of them had slewed round, and
was point ing at our men. I saw a second German doing the sa me -
getting up and trundling off into the edge of the trees or
the long grass there.And a third. Then, in front of our party
advancing on the right there got up a whole bunch of six or
seven Germans - Mu rdoch I think saw about 20 - and these really
r an - back over the hill into the wood. The advance of our in-
 

67
I should have said that as we were inspecting the regtl
headquarters bandstand a number of our guns - a battery I think-
took up it s stand on the f urther side of the position just
300.y ds south of the German field r ailway; and they opened
from ther e in a salvo just as we passed over the swelling ahead
of them. There were at the sam e time further guns firing from
the plain on our left,, and t hese drew an immediate reply
fr on some German g uns as they were in full view clearly.
We watched the brave little advance up that hill for ever
so long. Again and again the "diggers" got up and made their
rushes; and it s eemed to me that at last the rushes became
shorter, and perhaps the numbers fewer. Where sections had
consisted of 7 they now seemed to consist of 5. Occasionally
we saw a man coming back, well this side of them with a hand
bound up or some other wound. At last the advance having got
pretty much i n behind the smoke of the tank - I noticed that
they made a rush, which seemed to end in a differentxx way
from the others. Instead of throwing themselves forward the
men seemed to slide into something f eet formost. xxxx First
one lot did this then another. And they did not go on again
from tht point. They seemed to have reached either a road
or some sunken place. They We saw no more movement. Only at one
place I c ertainly xxxx saw some of our men go into the corn er
of a wood - I couldnot say, afterwards, which wood; but I
fancy that it was the wood on the right- and the left hand
corner of it. To the right of that we were clearly in front of
the wood. We never, reached the part by the wooden house.
On the left slope of the hill also, there was certainly
fi ghting. Away there, running down the skyline of the
left hand hillslope there was a road - I could see the line of
t rees along it.And down this road - about two fifths of the
w ay from the top were moving one –two - three men, bent up.
At first I thought that they were possibly bicycling owing to
their attitu de and the smnothness with which their backs see med
to glide. But a second look convinced one that they were under
fire. They f ell, b ut g ot up again presently. One fell in
such a way, that I think he was hit - and presently they could
not b e seen any more. So that if our left flank was established
at all it was certainly not further forward than that road - and
bent curiou sly back along the h illside.
(The 7th Bn, we heard next day, had been there and
had a rough, time on that road. And the 6 th was in support of
the 8th Bn in the advance ah ead of us - we were not sure whi ch
it was. A man of the 6 th met further back wounded told us that
he had been hit, "on the top of the next ridge"- they were "over
the ridge". Wh at ridge was meant I dont know - but possiblyo
some wer e thr ough CREPY WOOD or past those guns on the green
h illt op.We s eemed to be further up on left than right, ther e).
Old Murdoch has a brother in the 8th Bn, but it was
too late, and probably too dangerous, to go right out and
find him. O ne always susp ects that a German c/attack is
possible when one is up advanced like that, and that one may be
cut of f, or find the line back upon one while one is talking
to a company, commander or even the colonel; or that the German 

may put d own his barrage and make it difficult to get out.
We walked back past the 8th Bn Hqrs. The C.O. had just wired
back to say that the Bn had r eached the xxx red line -(i.e.
not the fur thest, objective but, the 2nd objective). An
officer of the 2 nd Divl art illery was there - his battery
not yet in; h e told us the town to our right front was as I
th ought - ROSIERES. LIHONS was behi nd the hill.
We walked back past the dead Germans, past the old
big G un which I photographed against the sun. The best photo
one got that day was one of a wounded German lying on the
road in front of 8th Bn h eadquarters pit, and four of our
men trying to get boards underneath him to take him away on
them. He h ad g one by the time we returned.
The 8th Field Coy had painted out again its sign
"Captured by 8th Field Coy" on the train. The officer told me
 

68
me that though they salved it f rom Nomansland they could not
claim to have captured it. The 31s t had part in that, he sai d-
xxx in the bring ing of it in.
It was a very tiring walk back to the car. Long
aft er dark we found Boddy. Ger man planes began to buzz thro ugh
the sky. Then to the xleft of us near Bayonvillers or beyond
we saw three ang ry r ed bombs drop - and others afterwards
in various parts of the rear, a r ea. (Next day I heard that the
bombs near Bayonvillers killed Lt Ferguson of the 3rd Bn and
several men, c at ching the bn on the march up.

Sat u rday August 10t h.
Mu rdoch wanted to go today to the 8th Bn to
see, h is brother , so I told him that I would take Gilmour
and we would go somewh ere else. Blamey or someone had said
that the 1 st Di vn, would not be fighting today .
H owever on calling in at the 1st Divl Hqrs
which was in a dilapidated chateau at V/Bretonneux, with rather
fine wood pannelling inside, we heard that the 1st Divn were
fight ing - that, they were advancing and taking the hilltop
and Lih ons.Th ey had gone on at 8am. It was then nearly 1pm
so we pu shed on straig h t away.
The roads th is day were perfectly foggy with dust
especially through the village s. I took several photos in the
dust at Warf u s ee. We took the car xxxxxxx by the turning
to Bayon v illers, where there were German fieldgun shells
dug into the r ight hand bank of the road ditch much the same
as Lloy ds brigade dug them in at Pradelles but not so neat.
There were four gu ns there - if I remember right, and four
on the left of the Warf us ee-road before you turned off to
Bayonvillers - German fieldgu ns. Just outside of B/Villers was
a shallow quarry with a n u mber of bivouacs round it - on th e
rig ht of the road - now us edby our artillery or engineers.
(Later heard the 31 st Bn had fighting there).
Bayonvillers was not knocked about to the same extent
as Warf u s ee. Down the main road was a green with some trees,
and under these, was a German 5.9 howitzer turned over on its
back. I fancy that this may have been a repairing point
tho it seems scarcely far enough back.
We w ound through the town past the Town Majors office
where the town ord ers were still chalked up in German on the
blackboard out side his offic e. Further along nearing Harbonnieres
 we xxxxx saw a big dump burning far ahead of us and to -
the right. I do no t know where it was. It was burning all
day. This side of Harbonnier es I photographed a field ambulance
 with this du mp burning i n the background - it may be-
away down in f ront of the Fr ench. It may be Roye - one
cannot tell.
We turne d to the right thro ugh Harbonnieres, as the left
might be more exposed for the car; and drove as far as the railway. 

Ju st at this point were t wo German motor lorries
abandoned. Boddy lay the car u p under xxxxx the road bank.
Gilmour and I walked along N. of the rly hedge, and passed
the 9 th Bn transport there. T he 3rd Bde was up near Crepy
Wood and the tr ansport was parked back here. They told us
that 2nd Bde Hqrs was by the "Du mp by the rly".
We went along looking for the dump and found only artillery 

waggon lines alongside the hedge. Of course there were
traces of G ermans - bits of clothing and equipment - at intervals; 

and curious dugou ts into the side of the-railway
hedge, facing S. which must I think have been made by the xx
English during their retreat. I have found these dugouts in
several places facing oddly - generally south. Perhaps it
is more likely that they were Germans, who dug them, as they
were driving the British SW. By, the hedge I noticed xxxxxx
a torn f r ag ent of ext raordinary, thickness - 4 or 5 inches
and rusty. I didnt think what it could be until we came on a
long naval gun lying by the rly just this side of Rosieres
 

69
station. It was a B ritish railway g un blown up when they left
R osieres, clearly.
xxxx We c ut half left towards the hill past the edge
of Rosieres, passing a tank disabled in the usual manner by
the cutting of her xxxx  ca terpillar and past some dugouts
sunk just level with the ground and camouflaged with paper
net, wit h a very f ine green mesh. We took some for the war
Mu seum. Ju st beyond this in a dugout, watching air fights f rom
the mouth of it, I saw xxxxxxxxxxxx someone with the familiar 

old 3rd B n colou rs; and recognised the fair hair and
big smile of Maj.Bu rrett. They had come up the dxxxxxxxx
night before - during the night - being bombed on the way, as
I said. T he other brigad s were fighting ahead of them - and
h ad taken , they thought, Crepy Wood -the 3rd Bde had done that.
T h ere had been splendid air fighting all the morning and they
were just delighted with the manoeuvres of a little Camel
machine wh ich had just brought down two Germans within 10
minutes. T h ere was a squadron of Germans sailing in the of fing
over Crep y or bey ond; but a bi gg er squadron of our planes
- perhaps, 1 2 or 15 of them, had just seen these, and we watshed 

them head for the Ger mans and begin to slant down towards
them when the Germans turned tail and went off for a few mile s.
Then our men t ur ned round and c ame back and began cruising
again and the Germans also began to beat up more to the north
towards our lines. Our men were, h oping to see another
scrap - b ut when the British planes did not go over to
meet the Germans there was someone to make an excuse for them-
"They dont want to get too far over his lines," they said. "It
is too dangerou s on account of fire from the ground. That is
a long way behind the German line where the German planes are".
Most of this fight ing was 3000 to 6 000 feet up, and the
squadr-eons wou ld cr u ise at 9 000 feet and begin to dive
from t h at height.
2nd Bde Hqrs wer e close by - through a quarry or sand
pit in the cellars of a big building by the rly. It was when
we got to this place that we s aw what was meant by the "Dump".
On the other s ide of the bldg where Hqrs were was a huge pile
of wood wor k- ti mb er piled in masses and stacks like a
great timber yard.
We went into a space behind a large building in the
railway yard. And there, outside the cellars where his Hqrs
were, we found Heane, and Selmes.
Heane was very worr ied. The battalions which had been
attacking that day, he said had had heavy losses -owing to
the Canadians on their right not having started. xxxx It
h ad been arranged that the advance this morning was to start
- the 2nd Bde without tanks, and the Canadians with tanks,
at 8 am. At 7.45 the Canadians on Heanes right had told him
that they could not be ready to start till 9.45 - and they
actually did start at 10. Their tanks had not arrived before.
It was too late to stop our advance; and so over it went.
They took it very heavily in the flank from where the Canadia ns
would have been; and finally were held up after a long advance.
T he Canadians started at 10, and our men were able to get
along a litt le way with them. But the Canadians were now a
long way past us; and the Bn commander on Heanes right told him
that he had his Hqrs in Chpilly
We asked Heane the way to 8th Bn and 6th Bn Hqrs and
he sent a runn er with us - we took his photo in the railway
yard. The G ermans had ju st begun to peck into the left
side of the Rosieres Dump with whizzbangs -all the fire always 
seemed to come from that side. (Y esterday we heard a battery
behind the NE end of the hill before Lihons firing to its front.
All the other guns seemed to be fi ring from the NE aiming SW)
Some almost SSW) .
We found the 8 th in the station buildings. Outside
their xxxxxxx aid post was a notice in chalk on a little blackboard 

giving the meals the Germans were to have had on Aug.8th
Damfleisch - 100 grammes and so on. I got them to let me take
 

70
this b oard for the war Museums. The 8th Bn said that they got
to the xredx line last night, and some of them got into the
corner of the woo d also. Mitchell was down in the cellar
with his adjutant resting, so we didnt stay there long, but
went on with our guide, beside the N.hedge of the rly to see the
6th Bn.
T he 6th Bn had been in a dugout xxxxxx beneath a tree, there.
But when we got to this dugout they had gone. There were some
guns further on - 4 of them lined out from the hedge. They
thought the 8 th were further on. Ahead again were 3 guns close
by the hedge - quite in the open, very far forward. They pointed us
to a dugout close ahead of them. In the stairway was standing
a 3rd Bn man. But it was 6th Bn Hqrs.
An officer of the 8 th Bn whom we had met coming back
along the hedge said to me:"You know it is such a pity that
there is such a want of coordination in these shows. We should
have liked to attack at dawn - 4 oclock or thereabout, when
there was a fine mist and we could have smothered the machine
guns. There is often a mist in these mornings. Instead of that
we wait till 8 when the mist has cleared right away, and
attack then. (The Canadians, he said moved off at dawn - he
was next to the railway himself and he saw them, he said. He
was quite positi ve - they mo ved at dawn and we did not .-This
may have been their reserves moving up to the hopping off
po sition. If so it was a very wise move). Then we moved off",he
went on," at 8 am, without the Canadians on our flank, and get
it in the neck from their flank. T hen they move at 10 and go
a long way beyond us   and probably get it from our flank....
It was just the same yesterday. First the Canadians moved off
before the I st Divvy could get there - the 5th Div went over
instead. Then the 1st Div goes ahead and the 2nd Divn is not
up in time to start on their flank; and so the 7th Bn which
was o n the left has an exposed flank and gets very heavily
handled." It struck me as an exceedingly good appreciation
of the position - I told it to Blamey when I got back and he
seemed to be interested and glad to know it.
We found the 6 th Bn - Ulrich - in a sandy gallery,
about 20 feet long a few feet below the surface, with a
st airway at either end. All these dugouts must have been made
against our planes - which made Chaulnes and these rear places
too hot for living above grou nd. Nothing of the sort is to be
found on our side of the line in such bac k areas - not yet
anyhow. We, generally are about a year behind the Germans in our
aeroplane experience - that i s to say, the Germans practise
against us about a year later what we practice against them now.
Ulrich said that the 6th Bn had had a very heavy
time.They started without tan ks at 8 am and had a long way
to go before, they eben reached the front line; and during
th is t ime were losing men b y MG fire - in this respect too
the attack was like HELLES. Wh en they had gone as far as they
could even by crawling and short rushes, they waited, and
when the Canadians came along, - their advance being made much
easier b y t he 6 Bns advance, they went on 300 yds with them.
(The full account is in my notebook) They had lost almost all
their officers - 2 yesterday, and 14 today, - the officer who
h ad to get ab out and organise was shot down in doing so.
They only had 4 officers left. Ulrich did not know anything
of the Canadians having made any  start at dawn.
Whi le I was there Hean e was clearly anxious to get
the 6 th forward becau se the Canadians were so far ahead of
them. The 6 th were held up b y a mg, on the left of the rly
in the corner of the road and rly near the HALT. They asked
for g u nfire on it and the artillery officer there promised
this. Then there was a message f rom the infantry by runner
to say that the infant ry, reported that heavy shells from
our own 6 in(I th ink) were falling too close, and they asked
for these to be leng thened. Ulrich's said that the 5th Bn
was considerab ly beh ind the 6 th, and was not in the wood which
we saw ahead (the right wood). As I was leaving the dugout I
st ood up to take a snap of the woods from the dugout top and
two bu llets whizz ed past - which seemed to confirm this.
 

71.
(Wilkins, wh o came to our camp n ext day, told me
th at he was out along the railway this day. Indeed it must
h ave been ab out this time.Far along the railway forward we
saw a figu r e which was xxxxxxxxx quite possibly he, He
went along the Canadian si de. Th ey, got much farther than
our men. Ou r peop le were held up by two machineguns and
the Canadian s sent forward one of their tanks along the
S.side of the hedge by the railway to clear out these posts. The
tank went out with a section of Canadian infantry. Wilkins got
a photograph of them going along beside the railway hedge with
th e men, all l ying on thei r f aces under heavy fire - he
said you could see the dust spurts from the machinegun bullets
and that within a quarter of an hour there were 12 men wounded
there. T he machinegun nests were cleared and then Wilkins
walked across towar ds where our infantry were, obliquely
from the N. of the railway. H e was 800 yards in front of the
infantry - 5 th Bn- where he found them, but not so far I
fancy in fr ont of the 6 th which he didnt see. The Canadians
had been speaking of our men not coming up with them on their
flank. He found a party of about 30 of the 5th Bn in a shell
hole or su nken depression under a sergeant major. They xxxx
called to him to xxxxxxxxxxx get down or he would get
sh ot. He asked them what there was - they said "Well you wouldnt
have walk ed about there like that half an hour ago - there was
a machinegu n pretty, active there then." He told them it had
gone and asked them why they didnt get on, until they began
to ask h im wh o h e was, anyhow, to ask them. They said they
were the last of their battalion, and probably thought it.
The 5th is not at present the best battalion in the force,
b ut they were done, anyway, by their advance in the morning
without C anadian help. (It is curious that the 5th Bn though
always the best dressed and formal battalion in the A.I.F.
has never been one  of the best since the very early days when
Saker was killed on the 2 nd day at G allipoli.Lillie led them
well at Pozieres. But Lemaist re was no use as a colonel and
th e battalion has never had the right sort of colonel since.)
We walked xxxxxx back behind the hedge in order to
avoid the sniping, if there should be any more of it ; then cut
across behind the guns towards where we thought we should find
the 7 th Bn , out on the plain , near the xxxxxxxx  German C.C.S.
We kept fairly close up to the hill where we saw our men attacking 

yesterday ; and presently passed two men - or rather a man
and an officer of the 8th Bn going along a road to the rear.
They, told us that the 8 th Ben was in the trenches just ahead
at the foot of the hill; and that we should probably find Ivan
Mu rdoch where the road from the right wood crossed the line of
sh elters on the green patch below the hilltop -i.e.where we
saw yesterdays attack start. We found D coy of the 8th in those
old trenches - old deep wide overgrown French Somme trenches.
xxxxx I photographed them - they said Ivan Murdoch was back
with C Coy in an old trench further in rear. We walked back
and found ourselves between two old C.Ts - both very deep -
garrisoned by the 8th,and 5 th or 7th. But Ivan had just gone
down to Rosieres to see Keith Murdoch - some message had
come f or him.
I forgot, to say that before we reached the 6th Bn Hqr s
the G ermans put down a very heavy barrage upon Crepy Wood. The
wh ole wood simply oozed with dun coloured shell smoke, oozing
out between the green tr ees as, the soupcoloured water might
ooze between a mans fingers if he gripped a dirty sponge.
It continu ed for a long time - quite half an hour I should
say. T he G ermans were most evidently counterattacking the wood.
Ulrich, when we reached him, had heard that the 6[[?]]th Bn was
being c/attacked. T his had died down by the time we walked
across the plain. But the German was still throwing shells evry
now and then into the little wood by the crossroads and quarry
where his light battery was yesterday. For that reason we gave
this little wood a pretty wide berth.
 

72.
As the 9th had clearly taken the wood, and were being
counteratt acked there, I decided to go to their headquarters
to pick up the rest of the news of the day. We passed a number
of Tommy artillerymen - their guns were pretty close up behind
the wood - the little wood - an d climned through two very
deep trenches - C.T s about 8ft deep; crossed the road near
an abandoned German limber, leaving the shallow quarry and wood
on our right: and found ourselves ina number of curious hummocky
shallow dugouts, with very uneven ground around them. There
were in this uneven ground onld shellholes - very old ones.
They were some of the old Shellholes of the-Somme.
xx Some of the men were dodging about a bit - if they had
to g o a message some of them ran - so it had clearly been lively.
We passed the aid post of the 9th and found the battalion under
the bank of the road W of Crepy Wood, in a fairly comfortable
shelter without too much room. Mullins was telephoning, and he
had a young English art illery officer in there with him from
the guns behind him.
He told us that they had taken the wood - they had come
4 miles this morning ( but of course most of this was behind our
lines). They  had established a number of posts beyond the
wood, the Northern posts being on the xxxx far edge of the wood,
the southern posts being about 250 or 300 yards further. Then
the German had laid down this heavy straf -about 5pm I suppose
that would be - or perhaps nearer to 6 pm."They blew our posts
clean out of it", he said to us (I dont know quite what this
meant but anyway the posts were lost)."But the Germans did not
get into the wood, I fancy, Neligan lent us a company of the 10th
battalion, and I now hear that our posts are right back again
where they were."Mullins is one of those C.Os who always has
something to say against the next  unit beside him. He told us
that the 2nd Divn was not up - No, it was the 11th Bn - and so
h is flank was out in the air-or very much advanced; and the
5th Bn was not up on the S.side of him either.
We were going back when Neligan sent and asked us in to
his H qrs nearby. He had some War Museum things for me, he
said. He sh owed us a copy of "Kladderdatsch" which they had
found up there with a frontispiece showing Canada Australia
and South Africa riding on the back of an old horse which was
butting his head against a tree. "We cannot go any further,
children, "Canada was saying to the others."I think we had
rather get off -(or) We'd like to get off ". It was rather
fu nny that this should have been found at the xxxxxxx point
reached by this Canadian Australian offensive-which has given
the Germans a greater shock than any other experience of the
war. T heir papers say so - the bigg est disaster that has yet
befallen Germany in the war, (because,I suppose it was quite
unexpected - they expected Foch's reserves, but not this.)
He also found there a bundle of xxxxxx photo negatives which
h ad been, brou ght by some G erman soldier in his pack all
the way from R u ssia. T heseare going to be printed by Wilkins.
As we came back behind the hill the battery xx  {{of?]] British
artillery there was pulling out,and up came a battery of Australian 

artillery acr oss the flat to relieve it. The Australian
batt ery, came at the trot - but a couple of guns which
were fur ther back than the-others came in at the gallop -
the drivers lashing their horses,with their short whips, and
the gu ns b ou ncing from side to side as they crossed the
banks of a road. There was a man on ohe of the limbers hanging
on for all he was worth .
On the flats behind the sun was sinking after a glorious
day. All these days of the battle have been splendidly fine -
wonderf u l hot weather - there was a sprinkle or two the first
afternoon - just a few drops between the beautiful bright intervals. 

But except for this the weather has been perfect. The sun
was now setting beautifully. The Germans had been heavily
shelling the xxxxxx flats by V auvillers. Waggons and teams
 

73
were coming everywher e across the plain , and sometimes strings
of infantry. We passed part of the 1st Machinegun company
digging in N of the railway on the flats where the Germans had
been throwing g as shell - the first gas shell since the push
- it made our xxxxxxxxx  nostrils ache; and one could hear
the men there sneezing. Further back the cookers of some battalion
with their long chimney s were getting ready the evening
meal. We found Boddy with the car, and home again, very late.
Murdoch - I found when I got to our camp after hearing
the news at the General Staff Office - Murdoch was a casualty.
He had been explaining the situation to two Canadian officers
- pointing it out to them on his map near Harbonnieres; when
an Australian limber, bou ncing up the road to the front had
knocked him down and run over both his legs. One of his ankles
could bear no weight. He had to lie up where he was - in my
ten t. I got B arber to see him, and Wilkins who came in fixed
him up in his valise very capably. Barber is not sure that his
an kle has not had a bone split.
T h ere has been formed, for work N. of the Somme, a
force to be known as the LIAISON DIVISION, to work along the
N. of the Somme at the same time as we work along the S. of
it. This consists o f our 13th Bde; the (133rd) American Bde;
[*see page 
78
131st Regt*]
a cavalry Bde; guns of 5 8 th Divn and some of our 4 th Divn;
and some other units. The Americans have straightened out the
tangle Ch ipilly way, and that flank is more certain now. The
5 8 th had a pretty hard time I fancy
The command of the Li aison Division is being given to
Wisdom, and Casey is acting as his G.S.0.1. Tonight they are..
going to t ake the Etinhem Peninsula while the 10th Bde are
to go out with tanks near Proyart - along the mainroad by
La Flaque Dump, and turn northward. The tanks, Blamey explained
to us, will leave four posts, or more on the heights beyond
Proyart as they go; and we shall then have Proyart enclosed
and mop it up backwards. It sounds rather an experiment, (I thought)

Sunday Au gust 11th. Murdochs foot better. But the
doctor-a Western Australian with a D.S.0. and M.C.,- told us
that he would have to go to to a C.C.S, probably to get it
X rayed, unless it were possible to diagnose it before the evening.
Old Murdoch has had one brother in the very intense fighting
of the 8th Bn at LIHONS and another in the fight last night,
when the 37 Bn tu mbled into a fiasco near Proyart. He is
pretty anxious. T he expedition last night was to go out with
th ree or, four tanks and th ese were to drop posts behind
Proyart. As th e tan ks went up the main road the Germans
heard them and opened mg fir e. The tanks stopped. The Germans
threw flares and their aeroplanes - or rather one aeroplane -
which happened to be over, saw the tanks and started to bomb
them. Col.Kno x Knight of the 37 th went forward to try and
get the tanks into formation, and was killed by a machine gun
bullet.Th e infantry stayed where it was and dug back a line
b eside the road to its starting point.
Gilmour and I set out about 11 to go to the 13th Bde, which
had completely su cceeded in its attack on the northern side
of the river, and had got in and lined the steep far side of
the peninsula behind Etinhem. T he G ermans were said to be
still in Et inh em, cut off. But as the southern half of the
mo ve had failed they st ill had some chance of getting across
at the foot of the peninsula and away, - indeed I think it
was said they had done so.
From there we meant to go on to the 10th Bde to hear about
Murdochs brother.
Murdoch, when he came over this time brought with him the
news of h ow the qu estion of the command of the A.I.F. was
going. Hughes , when last he saw him, had told him that he was
decided to off er the p osition of GO.C. or of Corps Commander
to Monash (to Birdwood first - then to J.M.) and let him take