1st/5th Battalion Back to the Front Line

Friday 2nd August 1918

Yesterday 1st/5th Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment left their Egyptian holiday and training behind them as they moved up into the front line in Palestine. They are at Mejdel Yaba about eleven miles north-east of Ramleh(1). The Bedfords have resumed their vigorous patrolling of earlier in the year, searching for information in no man's land and the enemy front line. Last night, for example, they found a sangar (a temporary fortification built of a breastwork of stones in areas where the soil is too stony to dig trenches) which had been occupied by the Turks but is now abandoned.

Source: X550/6/8

(1) The Palestinian Mejdel Yaba was captured by Israelis in 1948 and depopulated. It now forms part of the Israeli settlement of Rosh HaAyin.

Bedfords move to Surafend

Tuesday 25th June 1918

1st/5th Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment, yesterday moved at a village called Surafend. This village lies about three miles north-west of Ramleh. The battalion has made a number of moves in the last few years and this has sparked rumours that General Allenby is "moving his pieces on the board" as the adjutant put it, for best advantage in a new offensive - time will tell(1)

Source: X550/6/8

(1) Sarafand-al-Amar would become infamous on 10th December 1918 when soldiers of the ANZAC Mounted Division massacred around forty Arabs after murder of a New Zealand trooper by an Arab thief. It is now the Israeli town of Nir Tzvi