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[Page 11]
5. Flanders, Ypres & Messines
The battalion's camp for the next two months while the Ypres offensive was in progress was at a ready made camp known as Pioneer Camp; this was situated some four miles to the west mid way between [indecipherable] & Dickebusch. To enable the men to get to their various tasks which lay to the east (often 4 or 5 miles to the east) of Ypres, 10 motor lorries were attached to the Battalion for general use, these carried the men as far forward as was possible to their work & reduced the marching to & from the jobs to an absolute minimum.
'D' Coy were first of all split up among the various Heavy Artillery groups to assist in constructing gun positions – the remainder of the battalion were ordered to construct a road running from Birr Cross Roads (on the main Menin Rd) to Zillebeke. This road was directly behind a series of battery positions & consequently was heavily shelled. The most difficult position, however, was with material for all dumps & cross roads, were the subjects of much attention from the Hun's artillery, so that it was frequently difficult to get at the material and when loaded it had then to be got to the job.
At times too the task was unapproachable & as much time was occupied in the repairing the shell torn parts of the road already made as in forming the new road surface. However by the splendid cooperation of all ranks and particularly the Transport section the work was completed in 9 days & the road left fit for traffic throughout. For the next few days, odd jobs were more or less the rule, such as duck walks, road work & digging trenches for pipe lines. Each of these tasks, tho' perhaps small in itself all presented difficulties quite as severe as the larger jobs. For instance in one case orders were received at 4 pm to make a road that night passable for artillery between two points on the