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[Page 10]
The School Magazine (April 1, 1924).
our gallant scouts every night crawling forward to the enemy trenches to gain information or to capture prisoners. Then good news arrived. They were going to advance - to advance right up the Villers Bretonneux hill and around the town to the north and south; and a fine British battalion from Durham was to help.
After their great advances the Germans did not imagine that they would be attacked. They themselves were preparing for another advance. But so rapidly and gallantly did the Australians move forward that they soon had two horns around Villers Brettonneux. The Germans fought well, especially in the streets, across which they had barbed entanglements, and the Durhams lost heavily. But nothing could stop the advance of the Diggers. Villers Bretonneux and all the Germans in it were ours. It was a glorious victory, that April day of 1918.
Poor Villers Bretonneux! The enemy now shelled it day and night for weeks, until every home was in ruins. But Amiens was safe, and soon the people returned, many, unfortunately, to seek homes they could not find.
However, they remember, and say that they will ever remember "the big, sunburnt, kind-hearted men from so far away," who saved their city.