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: 25th June 1916

The bombardment today was a good deal heavier, though by no means deafening. The 15” and 12” guns behind us did not (I think) open till the evening, and did not blow the farm down as we expected. I went out twice to watch the bombardment, there was a medium amount of smoke all along the line. About 12.15pm the Bosch put it across Collincamps (next village N of Mailly). They just kept on pumping clusters of big shells into it for ten minutes, causing a lot of smoke. Monkhouse came into tea. He has moved his headquarters up to be close to the forward batteries, with the result that the Bosch yesterday evening blew up his kitchen and cook, so he had to move house again. The Bosch is not replying much to our bombardment, everything appears to be fairly quiet in the trenches, but he opens furious squirts at intervals on batteries and villages behind. When the 4^th Divn discharged their gas last night , the Bosch opened a heavy bombardment on their firing and support line, but did not shell the trenches just behind at all.

We were to have discharged our gas tonight but wind again unfavourable.

War Diary Entry: 3rd June 1916

Raikes came up from the trenches and lunched. After tea I went over to Mailly Wood with Gillon to see the KOSBs. There has not been much shelling lately, except that they have marked down the entrances of Gabion and Witherington Avenue and the two batteries near there, so that the spot has been rather unhealthy lately.