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Saturday 20 August 2011

Diary Entry and Extract from Orders, 2nd Battle for Guillemont - 20th August

Diary Entry

I was orderly officer and, beyond fire salvos through the day, there was nothing else doing. Dixon went to the wagon line for lunch and returned very pleased, with tales of moving. Major Carrington, however, was round in the afternoon and said that he saw no hope of being relieved for 10 days at the outside. At nine or later, Thorburn rang up and said we were moving on Tuesday – at least a section was to go out then – and our hopes rose to a great height. Loud cheers and much laughter echoed through the Bosch dugout that evening at bedtime.
Extract from Orders (Routine):

Batteries will be interested to hear that I saw the 17th Infantry Brigade this morning and found them most enthusiastic about the 2nd Divisional Artillery Barrage.

They say "they got into their objective everywhere with hardly a casualty', and, as far as they know, nobody was hit by a short shell, although they followed up very close. In one part they were over the parapet just as the Bosches began to lift their machine guns to it. They also say that any wire there had been was entirely destroyed. I have also heard from CRA 24th div about the excellence of the barrage.

IH Saunders
CRA
2nd Div.

2 comments:

  1. 'Thalborn' is probably Lt Stephen Keith(?) Thorburn who seems to have been Brigade adjutant at this time

    ReplyDelete
  2. Will change it now. As always, thank you, your help is invaluable.

    ReplyDelete