Monday 14th May 1917
Readers will
remember that yesterday Brigadier-General Cumming of 91st Brigade was relieved
of command because his commanding officer did not like his plan of attack on
The Red Patch in Bullecourt. An alternative plan was tried by his replacement,
which was unsuccessful. Today Cumming’s original plan was used to attack this
beastly place. Ironically, it looked for a while as if this plan might actually
work. Then a bomb dump being used by the attackers was blown up by an enemy
shell and, lacking sufficient ammunition the attacks petered out with nothing
achieved.
Our old
friends 51st (Highland) Division are in the field again. Having replaced 4th
Division in the line, last night they attacked and took Roeux, which had been
abandoned by the enemy.
News has
reached us from three of the battalions of the Bedfordshire Regiment. Firstly
from Palestine: yesterday 1st/5th Battalion remarked on groups of camels seen
on the road from Gaza to Beersheba. A nearby brigade of howitzers decided to
try their luck, at 6,500 yards range, but their shots fell some 200 yards
short.
During the
morning a Battalion signaller was mending a line outside a communication trench
behind the front line when he was sniped and killed by a Turk some 1,400 yards
away(1). At the moment their war seems to be at long range.
The
commanding officer of 6th Battalion, Colonel F H Edwards MC has been
transferred to Home establishment for three months’ rest. He has been replaced
by Lieutenant-Colonel W R Campion, Member of Parliament for Lewes in Sussex(2).
The 8th
Battalion, in the front line at Hulluch reports that last night gas was vented
along the whole line and sent drifting towards the enemy. Gas bombs were also
fired from projectors and then the British artillery bombarded communication
trenches to catch men hurrying from the front line with pas poisoning and to
the front line expecting an attack. The enemy’s artillery was very feeble in
response
Sources: X550/6/8; X550/7/1; X550/9/1
(1) This must
have been 200870 Private G Pratt, aged 19, son of Sophia of Pyne Cottages,
Chalton near Toddington who is buried at Deir el Belah War Cemetery, twelve
miles or so south-west of Gaza.
(2) and later
Governor of Western Australia from 1924 to 1931.
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