On relief, the Battalion went by march route and motorbus to Houtkerque.
The 11th Division was now to be employed in the attack against the main line of the ridge east of Zonnebeke, the front of the principal attack extending from the Menin Road to the Ypres Staden railway, a distance of about seven miles. The Division—still in the XVIII. Corps and the Fifth Army, was to attack the Poelcapelle line, and was again on the left of the Corps front, having on its left the 4th Division of the XIV. Corps.
The 6th Green Howards left Houtkerque by 'bus at 10 a.m. on the 7th October and arrived at Siege Camp at 2 in the afternoon, the move being conducted in very cold and rainy weather; and here orders were received to move up to the line and relieve the left battalion of the 33rd Brigade that night. This was done, " A " and " B " Companies occupying the outpost line, while " C " and " D " were in support at Pheasant Farm (Jungburg), the relief, by reason of the bad state of the ground, not being completed until 3.40 on the morning of the 8th. This day orders were received for the carrying out on the 9th of an attack the details of which had previously been made known, but the weather was so stormy, and the night so exceptionally dark, that some of the runners sent out lost their way and the companies in the front line did not get their orders until the early hours of the 9th.
Then when, on the evening of the 8th, an attempt was made to put out the tapes, these were drowned by the rain, and they were not in position until 2 a.m. on the 9th, so that company officers were unable to make any previous reconnaissance of their forming-up places and the assembly was thus much hindered. However, the Battalion was finally formed up at 4.30 a.m. on the 9th.
The enemy's shelling was very heavy during the forming-up, but there was no actual hostile barrage, while that by our guns was not very well defined, and some of the heavy batteries seemed to be firing very short.
There was little opposition in the village until the fork in the roads opposite The Brewery was reached, and some one hundred to two hundred prisoners were sent back to the Battalion ; but at The Brewery itself heavy machine-gun fire was met with from Meunier House and from the direction of String House, and though several of the concrete " pill-boxes " northwest of The Brewery were captured, the general line reached could not be held and a line was finally dug some short distance in rear. During this consolidation many casualties were caused by machine-gun and rifle fire at close range and from both flanks. The light trench mortars attached to the Battalion were early destroyed by shell fire and consequently failed to come into action, while the state of the ground prevented the co-operation of the tanks, the absence of which was much felt. At the time of " digging in " the Battalion was not in touch with other troops on right or left, so that both flanks were in the air.
At 11.15 a.m. a company of the 8th Duke of Wellington's Regiment was moved up in close support, while rifle ammunition and a supply of bombs were sent up rather later with a party from the 34th Brigade, which came up with great coolness and gallantry to Captain Dawnay's headquarters in broad daylight.
There were various rumours and reports of the enemy massing for attack, but nothing of the kind materialized, and the remainder of the 9th was quiet except for some sniping and machine-gun fire, though about 5 p.m. some forty of the enemy reoccupied the dug-outs north-west of The Brewery, causing an advance post of seven men to fall back ; it had, however, already been decided to withdraw this post.
The night of the 9th/10th was taken up with reorganization, with gaining touch with the battalions on the flanks and in evacuating the many wounded ; but early in the morning the enemy guns again became active, putting down a very heavy barrage, though no attack followed, and the rest of the day may be described as quiet. During the night that followed the 6th Green Howards were relieved by a battalion of the 18th Division and marched back to Irish Farm (Boezinge), where they entrained for the Serques (France) area.
Of the work of the troops the despatch states that " the 11th and 4th Divisions, advancing on both sides of the Poelcapelle road, stormed the western half of that village, including the church, and captured the whole of their objectives for the day " while the same despatch gives the general result of the attack in the following words : " The success of this operation marked a definite step in the development of our advance. Our line had now been established along the main ridge for nine thousand yards from our starting-point near Mount Sorrel (Zillebeke). From the furthest point reached the well-marked Gravenstafel (Passchendaile) Spur offered a defensible feature along which our line could be bent back from the ridge."
The losses in the Battalion had been heavy, amounting to 7 officers and 228 non-commissioned officers and men killed, wounded and missing, made up as follows : killed, Captain J. F. Myers, Second-Lieutenants F. Welford and R. Galtry and 38 other ranks ; wounded, Lieutenants H. Firth and A. Eade and 169 non-commissioned officers and men ; missing, Second-Lieutenants C. H. Burriss and J. G. Huntrods and 15 men.
Bron: the Green Howards in the Great War,1914-1919; door Wylly H.
