Item 06: John D. Wilson diary, 17 May-19 September 1917 - Page 119

[Page 119]

torpedoed in the Atlantic. The Germans have been repulsed on the [indecipherable], & the Russians continue their victories at Halicz and Kalurz. S. of Limberg in the D'niester Valley.
We are busy cleaning 2 limbers & I cooker in peperation for painting & varnishing, to compete in a show on the 22 of this month.
Early this evening the enemy made a brave but vain attempt to bring down one of our baloons with machine gun fire from one of his aeroplanes, admidst bursting shells from our archie batteries. He made of admidst a hail of shrapnel vainly attacking another baloon on his way. Later on an enemy plane made another attempt & succeeded in bringing down another baloon much further away. Throughout the evening the enemy has been trying his long range guns on our baloons but without success, though some of the shells burst very close & the pieces fell close to the stables. Just before dark he made another attempt at shelling our baloons & the shrapnel from two shells burst over camp, I was out in the open & they fell all around me & within a few yards. I was lucky another shell, a dud fell near another stable a few chains away.
I am second picquet to night 9 to 12.
This evening I made some match box cases out of brass artillery cases, also a butter knife

Tuesday July 17, 1917 (1079).
A fine day but very cloudy.
There were a few enemy planes over our billets this morning. The papers to day publish an account of the King & Queens recent visit to the front. The