Personal Diary: August 29th 1916

Went round the right subsector with Welch at 5.30am, found lots of gas cylinders not properly sandbagged in. The gas was to have been let off tonight accompanied by a bombardment but the wind changes so it was off. Rain started coming down in torrents about 3pm and flooded all the trenches. A gas alarm started some miles S of us and spread all along the line about 10.30pm, we managed to stop it going further. Have not heard whether any gas was really let off. Bayley dined & slept.

The Inniskillings and Borders relieved the KOSB & SWB respectively after dark & must have got nice and wet going up.

Personal Diary Entry: August 26th 1916

Went up to the trenches at 4am with Handress Lloyd and Morris to look at the work in Wieltje. The Inniskillings had not completed their full amount. Fuller & Bayley came in in the morning. Bayley again dined & slept last night. Harrington (Maj Gnel) came to see me this afternoon. West (left group RA) dined. They are starting to turn 4 gun batteries into 6 again to economise officers, this rather upsets the gunners.

Personal Diary Entry: August 25th 1916

As the defences of Wieltje have got to be pushed on the Inniskillings were turned on tonight to dig a new trench to connect B.10a with Monmouth trench. Yesterday morning a German got into the front line trench held by the left coy KOSBs about 9am. The line is very thinly held owing to lack of men, and there are some holes in the breastwork where it has been blown down by shells. The man was removing his clothes and apparently intended to put on a sergts greatcoat which was lying near. He was flushed by a passing signaller who had no arms; the German escaped whilst the signaller went for assistance. One of our aeroplanes had to land behind the german lines in our front this afternoon.

Personal Diary Entry: August 20th 1916

Dined with Handress Lloyd at the Inniskilling hd qrs in Ypres prison. Gillan came too. A quiet day, hardly any shelling. A KOSB patrol brought in 2 dead Germans from in front of their wire.

The 4^th Divn and 4^th Canadian Divn are going to take over the Canadian Corps line to allow them to go south. This means that all our 3 divns will be in the line the whole time, and no one in Corps reserve.

Personal Diary Entry: August 17th 1916

Presented medals to two men of the Inniskillings and 2 men of bde hd qrs at 9.30am. Delivered a short oration to the battn, Dined with the SWB and went on afterwards to see the 4^th Divn follies; it was the best show I have seen for years; all 6 men were 1^st class professionals with very fine voices.

War Diary Entry: August 9th, 1916

This morning we discovered that practically the whole of the left coy of the Inniskillings and the left coy of the Hampshires (next to us on the right) had been gassed, but not the right company of the Inniskillings which was between them. All the rats in the trenches and the birds and a cat in Potije Wood had died. 21 transport animals of the Inniskillings which were up in Potije died after they got back to their lines. Later in the day (about midday) several men in the right company of the Inniskillings began to go sick many of them dying quite suddenly, until the total casualties in this battn reached 15 officers and about 150 men, about a third of these being dead by the afternoon.

Those who succumbed at once when the gas was first discharged died peacefully without apparent pain, those who were only affected some hours later turned blue and foamed at the mouth & nose.

The alarm worked well & everyone appeared to have had the warning, but I think some of the officers & NCOs went about without their helmets on seeing the men were all right waiting for the first sniff, and then it was too late. Other men apparently exhausted after wearing them for 2.5 hours took them off after midnight and lay down to sleep in the bottom of the trenches and dugouts which were still not properly cleared of gas.

Then a number of men who had been affected, but did not know it worked hard all the morning clearing away the casualties, and this exercise had fatal results. We found a number of dead and dying rats in Ypres. One of the bdes in the 4^th Divn on our right was also gassed and had several casualties, the Germans attempted a raid on them but were beaten off. Some Germans came out of their trenches opposite us, but our machine guns kept up a fire the whole time so they did not come on.

The Borders and Inniskillings were relieved after dark by the 86^th Bde & the whole bde came back into reserve just E of Poperinghe.

War Diary Entry: August 8th 1916

More shelling during the day, particularly at a battery about 200 yards N of our hd qrs. they got direct hits on all the emplacements and dugouts but did no damage.

At 10.30pm the gas alarm was sounded, and everyone was warned. The guns opened a heavy barrage on our front. I got onto the Borders and Inniskillings and both sent in messages that though they could smell gas it was not being discharged on their front. The Inniskillings message proved to have been a mistake on the part of the signallers. On this information I stopped the guns firing on our front. Fuller & Mellor were up regulating the transport & came in to our hd qrs. After about 20 minutes we began to smell gas in Ypres so we all put our helmets on, but it never got really bad, occasionally getting thicker and then dying away. The relief of the two reserve battns went on at the prison and on the canal bank and they hardly felt its effects at all. At 12 midnight everything seemed to be over so I went to bed. The prepared blankets over all the doors and windows kept the gas out of the dugouts quite effectively.

War Diary Entry: August 6th 1916

The Borders relieved the SWB & the Inniskillings the KOSB in the firing line after dark. The Bosch was very quiet during the relief.

Personal Diary: 19th May 1916

In the morning the RIF turned out all available officers and NCOs and carried out a scheme with the Royal Flying Corps, sending & receiving messages with an aeroplane and signalling by flares. Not a great success. The Borders repeated the exercise in the afternoon.

De Lisle, Fuller and Abbot all turned up about tea time. I exercised a new horse, that has just been issued me, after tea. It seems a useful sort of animal.

Personal Diary Entry: 18th May 1916

The Brigade was relieved by the 88^th Bde in the trenches during the afternoon and evening. The KOSB went into the huts in Mailly Wood, SWB in Acheux Wood, Borders and RIF at Laurencourt with Bde Hd qrs. Relief completed without incident. Perfect summer weather again the last two days. Roger Brand and Guy Sawyer turned up in a car about 3.30pm just when all our kit had been packed up, and Cayley had arrived to take over, Jack Brand left at 4am for England to get married.