bade them farewell on his promotion to command the Nineteenth Division. He was succeeded in command of the 1st Brigade by General C. R. C. de Crespigny. On the 27th Lieut.-Colonel R. V. Pollok commanding the Battalion, who had been on leave, returned and took over from Captain A. F. L. Gordon acting in his absence. On the 29th Lieutenant B. Reford who had been Assistant-Adjutant took over No. 3 Company vice Captain T. F. MacMahon, wounded on the 11th, and 2nd Lieutenant T. S. V. Stoney joined for duty on the 25th.
Among the honours mentioned as awarded to the men that month for gallantry and devotion to duty was the D.C.M. to 5279 Private J. Rochford for "gallantry, devotion to duty and organizing ability" when employed as a stretcher-bearer with a working-party on September 3, the night when Lieutenant Boyd and twenty-eight men were killed or wounded by bombs. This, it may be noted, is that Rochford whose presence steadied, and whose jests diverted, whole platoons upon the Somme, and for whose health the men inquired first after the platoon or working-party had been shelled.
And while they trained, with the utter self-absorption of men concerned in the study of methods of taking man's life, the Salient heaved and flamed day after day with German counter-attacks as our guns covered the adjustment and reinforcements and protection of artillery troops and material in preparation for the battle of September 20. As usual, the weather broke on the eve of it. Ten Divisions (Nineteenth, Thirty-ninth, Forty-first, Twenty-third, First and Second Australians, Ninth, Fifty-fifth, Fifty-eighth and Twentieth) attacked from near Hollebeke in the south to Langemarck in the north; pushed back the line on the whole length of their attack; gained one mile outwards along the desperate Menin road, established themselves in Polygon Wood, broke eleven counter-*attacks, took over 3000 prisoners and left as many en-
