N.C.O.'s, and especially by those of the companies detailed for the cleaning up of Lesbœufs.
All runners and signallers should know the position of the advanced Brigade Report Centre, and that the best means of approach to it will probably be down the communication-trench T.3.c and T.8.b.
Finally, it cannot be too much impressed on assaulting troops the necessity for clinging to our own barrage. It will be an attack in which this should be comparatively easy, and on which the success of the whole operation may depend.
(Sd.) M. B. Smith, Captain,
Brigade-Major,
1st Guards Brigade.
September 22, 1916.
The Battalion's own task was to clear the three objectives
laid down, supported by the 3rd Coldstream, to
clean out the northern portion of Lesbœufs village,
and above all to secure their flanks when they halted
or were held up. They waited in their trenches while
our guns, hour after hour, sluiced the roads they were
to take with an even downpour of shell along the
trenches to be attacked—over Lesbœufs and its hidden
defences, and far out into the untouched farming
land beyond. It was a fine sunny morning that hid
nothing: at 12.35 our barrage locked down two hundred
yards ahead of the troops, and Nos. 1 and 2 Companies
moved out with the rest of the line towards the
first German trench three hundred yards away. The
enemy put down a barrage at once on our front-support
and communication-trenches, which caused a
good many casualties (including Captain R. J. P.
Rodakowski and the Doctor) in Nos. 3 and 4 Companies
who were moving up as a second wave. Eventually,
these companies found it less hampering to leave the
crowded trench and come out over the open. So far,
our artillery work was altogether a better business than
on the 15th. The companies moved almost leisurely
behind the roaring arch-of-triumph of the barrage, till
the leading line reached the first trench with its half-finished
dug-outs. Here they found only dazed German
