Next day March 21st, the battalion made ready in a hurry and marched out of Le Rossignol by route march, moving across to Kortypip hut encampment near Neuve Eglise and there remained for two days from there I was despatched to Baileuil to purchase supplies for the officers mess and as before made the most of my time finding out the news, etc. This time I found things much more lively in the town. The Germans had trained a high velocity naval 6″ gun on the town and were popping shell after shell into the railway station and south west side at intervals of ten minutes or so. Of course, the civilians were in a great state of alarm and excitement whilst large numbers were evacuating the place as fast as they could get away, pushing their goods and chattels along on barrows, or driving light spring carts. At the Officers Club the French waitresses were so alarmed that not one could be induced to wait in the mess, the work having to be performed by orderlies.

Being used to shells the troops in the town did not worry much, just carrying on as usual, driving the G.S. Waggons, lorries etc. through the streets with an air of contempt for the Hun and treating the shells as if they did not exist. Wishing to purchase some puttees of a special kind, I presently made my way to Burbury’s Officers Outfitting Store in the Rue de Lille and whilst looking at some which were shown me, a shell came crashing through the top storey of the building I was in and which caused a terrific crash of falling bricks and debris which buried the whole place including myself in a cloud of dust. Realising that I still maintained a whole skin I quickly evacuated the place without my put tees making my way down the Rue de Lille towards the outskirts of the town as fast as I could walk without breaking into a run. It was perhaps just as well that I did leave in a hurry as I had scarcely left the place when another shell burst in a house next door but one, causing the street wall to fall into the street, partially blocking the roadway. Two more shells burst in that street before I at last reached the outskirts of the tow and I must confess that I was well pleased when at last I left Baileuil behind me and I was on my way back to the camp.

The battalion now under Colonel Bennett D.S.O. remained at “Kortypip” until March 25th, filling in the days with platoon drill and rifle exercises. B coy however, was detailed as a working party to assist in strengthening the defences around Ploegsteert Wood going up daily per the light Decauville railway to a place knows as the “Catacombs” on account of tunnels which had been dug into the hillside nearby. Here we toiled for eight hours daily for four days, building dug outs, digging M.G. posts, wiring and digging trenches and so forth in an endeavour to make the Ploegsteert sector a more difficult proposition for the Hun should be decide to make a concerted attack in the neighbourhood.

By this time the Grand German Offensive had been launched down south at St. Quentin on the front held by the 5th Army. News of the progress of events there came to us in dribs and drabs most of it being bad news, some saying that the Huns had captured Amiens, whilst others averred that the enemy was on his way to Paris and the coast. What really did happen is now history and there is no need for me to give my opinion here. Nevertheless, at the time we did not know what was really happening and I do not think that the news good or bad really worried us either, since we had any amount of hard work to keep us occupied. On March 25 the battalion moved from Kortypip via Neuve Eglise down the Messines road to Wulverglem, a kilo or so behind Messines on the reverse slope of Messines Ridge, B co y and C coy moving right on into the Corps Line positions on the summit of Messines Ridge, relieving the 57th Btn. Here we made our headquarters in a pillbox of enormous strength, allotting other similar pillboxes to the rest of the company.

By night the posts on the forward slope of the ridge were by B and C companies but as the main line was still another two kilometres distant down on the plain below, the men had no cause to keep any especial watch other than by keeping one sentry on duty during the night hours. The posts had to be visited regularly by the platoon officers and we generally kept moving from one post to the other all night, occasionally having to take cover when the enemy decided to send over several salvos of 5.9’s or 4.5’s on the off-chance, I suppose, of doing some damage. When daylight came, the men came back to the ruined village of Messines and slept all day, in their respective pillboxes feeling quite safe from any shell in their miniature fortresses of reinforced concrete, sometimes built with a thickness of five or six feet. From our day positions on the Messines Ridge, a grand view could be obtained of the country ahead. Viewed through field glasses from a height of about five hundred feet, such places as Lille Warneton and Armentieres could be plainly distinguished, whilst a study of the ridge itself, with its enormously strong entrenchments, barbed wire entanglements, pillboxes of solid concrete, etc. made one wonder at the magnitude of the attack necessary to wrest such a formidable position from the enemy. However, as the Hun was practically blown out of the place with mines and big shells, and as the attacking troops were Australians, I suppose the Germans just had to go.