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upon which the next battalion would leapfrog through and continue the operation.
The 10th. Brigade were to operate Eastwards by strong battle patrols, and to endeavour to link up with battalions of the 11th Brigade as they moved up the HINDENBURG Line. This converging of the 10th. and 11th. Brigades would gradually cut out the frontage of the battalions under the G.O.C. 9th Brigade, which would become Divisional Reserve.
Instructions were received during the night that no artillery action was to take place within the area contained by the RED Line, owing to air reports being received of lighting of flares in the neighbourhood of the GREEN LIne.
After consultation with the G.O.C. 27th AMERICAN Division, however, arrangements were made for a barrage of field artillery to move North along the HINDENBURG Line in front of the attacking troops.
The night was a very severe one for the troops; the march of the 9th Brigade in particular by night, through shattered trenches, much wire, through mud and slush without landmarks, being a very difficult operation.
Patrolling the battle front was particularly difficult owing to the darkness of the night, and also to the movement of the American troops who (having been forced to remain in shell-holes during the night) endeavoured to find their way back during to night.
However at zero in the morning of the 30th. troops were in position and the attack commenced.
7. Operations of 30th. Sept. 1918
The operation of the 30th. American Division and the Fifth Australian Division on the right had succeeded in pushing the enemy well East of the HINDENBURG Line in the neighbourhood of BELLICOURT. The situation regarding the operation of the 27th. American Division was still obscure. The enemy was holding strongly those trenches of the portion of the HINDENBURG Line still in his possession, though during the night his advanced patrols had been pushed back from their forward positions in MACQINCOURT VALLEY-QUENNMONT FARM-GILLEMONT FARM, nearer to his front line in the HINDENBURG Line system.
Command of the forward areas passed from 27th. American Division to Third Australian Division at 3.25 a.m.
The progress of the attack of the 11th. Brigade at 6 a.m. was very slow, the enemy fighting stubbornly for each machine gun position or portion of trench; and throughout the whole of the day, the 11th Brigade and patrols of the 10th Brigade were engaged in severe fighting (bayonet, rifle grenades and bombs).
The enemy shelling on the portion of the HINDENBURG Line in our possession was very heavy and concentrated, and movement, except along the trenches, was practically impossible.