Umbrella Hill from The History of the Fifth Battalion Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment (TA)
Saturday 21st July 1917
The adjutant
of the 1st/5th Bedfords has managed to telephone me all the way from Palestine
with details of last night’s raid. At 5.40 a.m. yesterday morning the General
Officer Commanding 162nd Brigade inspected the raiders of 1st/5th Battalion and
watched a rehearsal by the six new rifle sections added to the raid. Between
six and eleven o’clock the Regimental Sergeant-Major and his party laid out
stores at the place of assembly in proper dumps. The afternoon passed without
incident.
At seven
o’clock last evening the whole raiding party marched out, arriving at the place
of assembly at about 20.15. Stores were issued. Everything was quite ready by
about 20.50 and all stores issued. The raiders left the place of assembly at 20.55
in accordance with programme and the raid was carried through very successfully
in accordance with the programme.
By sheer bad
luck the enemy had put up an intense bombardment of 5.9 inch high explosive
shells onto a very small area near the place of assembly and almost the whole
of the casualties are due to this except for the missing and probably two or
three killed on the hill and perhaps eight or ten wounded there.
Captain Miskin
About 9.45 pm
the raiders, followed by the supports, came back to our front line. With so
many men and in view of the tremendous noise and dense smoke some confusion was
inevitable but the officers and non-commissioned officers of these parties quickly
appreciated the situation and with the assistance of some parties organised by
the reserve commander Captain Miskin, managed to retain most of their men in
our front trench which was comparatively safe as the enemy barrage was
plastering a zone some fifty to one-hundred -and-fifty yards in the rear of the
front line. After some reconnaissance it was found possible to move the men to
the flanks along the front line and so out of the barrage. They were then
passed down communication trenches or in small parties in the open. The
garrison had been relieved and all except wounded evacuated by 01.30.
The large
number of wounded were evacuated by about 2.30 a.m. At 3.30 a patrol of one
officer and five other ranks went in the direction of the Beanfield, about 150
yards short of Umrealls Hill, but found nothing. Everything was quiet on the
hill itself. The remnants of the smoke and a thick mist made visibility
difficult.
At four
o’clock this afternoon a patrol of two went out, just as the dawn was breaking
and the lifting mist enabled one to see. They only stayed out about ten minutes
and found one dead body - from a former engagement - and some equipment which
was brought in.
Today the
dead, comprising one from the Royal Army Medical Corps, one from the divisional
signalling company, one from 484th Company, Royal Engineers, one from the
Machine Gun Corps, one from an unknown unit and sixteen from the Bedfords were
buried in a cemetery near the headquarters of the raid(1). The remainder of
today has been spent resting and writing reports.
One feature
of the reports was that every commander of a Unit from officers commanding
supports, reserves and raiders down to individual "mopping-up
sections" has been asked for a written report of his own work. These will
be forwarded to divisional headquarters.
Source: X550/6/8
No comments:
Post a Comment