With our army in Flanders

[Skipman]

With our army in Flanders

The 1st Koyal West Kents, otherwise

" The GallantHalf-Hundred," and the 2nd King's Own Scottish

Borderers, who were for so long in garrison in Dublin,

were entrusted with the initial attack. Officers and

non-commissioned officers received their instructions

as to the order in which the storming parties were to

go forward, ammunition and bombs were laid ready,

the doctors selected their regimental aid-posts, where

first aid is administered to the wounded, and all along

the line the requisite measures were taken for the

replenishment without delay of the supplies in men,

ammunition, and provisions as the wastage of the

fight should make itself felt. So it is before every

engagement. Meanwhile the West Kents and the

K.O.S.B.'s spent a long day in the trenches on the

fateful April 17, waiting for the shadows to fall and the

hands of the watch to point to 7 p.m. When an attack of

this kind is impending men's nerves are

strung up tight. It speaks well for the discipline of

these two battalions that they stood the test without

a trace of nerves.

Thin blue threads of smoke were rising from the

German trenches into the clear evening air when,

with a dull, low thud, accompanied by a billowing

quiver of the earth, the summit of Hill 60 was blown

sky-high in an immense black spout of earth and

debris and human fi'agments. Immediately afterwards,

\\ath a deafening roar, the second mine went

up—exploding, it is believed, a German mine with it,

so loud was the report. In the space of a minute or

two five mines were touched off, and immediately

after our artillery opened rapid fire on all the German

positions in the vicinity, on the woods in the rear, on

the ruins of Zwartelen village on the left (see map),

and on the railway cutting. As our guns spoke. Major

Joslin, who was commanding the West Kents'

storming party, standing beside the Royal Engineers

officer who fired the mines, blew the charge on his

whistle, and the attack got away, the bombers in

front.

Mike