Diary Entry - 29th April, 1917

Walford: At four a.m. there was another small barrage for half an hour, in which we were successful in clearing up the situation and capturing the Bosche, who had broken through, (300 in all). We also jumped into part of the Bosche line on the right of Oppy. A quiet morning but beautifully warm in the afternoon. I went up with Hoyland to register the guns again. I forgot to add that in the SOS on the previous night two of our guns had been knocked out and we had again received a warm reception, it just taking Bosche 4' to open on us. He fairly hailed HE on us at gunfire, and Hoyland said the faster rate that he shelled, the faster our guns fired on the Bosche, and our men were splendid. No. 4 had one burst three yards from the trail and no-one was touched but they were all thrown about by the blast. One gun had a splinter through the buffer and the other had a number of pieces taken out of the slides. We filed the slides down with a little care and got the gun in action once more. As we came down from the OP, the Bosche was shelling our trenches with all manner of heavy stuff, probably as our heavies had been putting it into Oppy all the afternoon. I stayed with the guns for the night, Hoyland and Evans going to K's.