A WAR STORY

Hokitika Guardian, 9 November 1929, Page 6

A WAR STORY

LIGHT INFANTRY ROUT PRUSSIAN GUARD.

On November 11, 1914, the Germans made their last great effort to smash the thin British line.in front of Ypres. Soon after daylight the enemy bombardment opened: it was fiercer than ever before, but,, the massed infantry attack of entirely fresh troops which followed met with a strenuous resistance.

North of the Alenin toad the enemy did break in. When the 2nd Oxfordshire and Buckhamshire- Light Infantry—almost our sole remaining reserve —arrived at Westhoek shortly before noon': there were only some heroic sappers and gunners with a few hastily collected cooks and stragglers ..holding on between our battery positions and the wood called Nonne Boschen Into the wood more than 500 of the Ist and 3rd Foot Guard Regiments had penetrated .

Shaken and disorganised after their successful advance in the face of heavy rifle fire, these did not take the opportunity to come on farther.

The Oxfordshires were only 300 strong with six officers. They moved forward slowly from Westhoek, avoiding with great skill the worst of the German shelling. ' Two of our batteries were firing over their heads as they rushed in and fell upon the men of the Prussian Guard. Fine big fellows as they were, the Germans could not stand before- bullet and bayonet thrust. Some surrendered but the Oxfordsliires drove most of them in a disorderly mob -through the wood and out from its south-eastern edge.