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[Page 26]
Whilst in this part of the front line I was detailed with a party on barb wiring in no mans land of a night & on several occasions fritz kept our heads buried in the ground with his machine guns & our party suffered one casualty. Just at dusk on the 26th June 1916 we saw one of our aeroplanes set fire to three enemy observation balloons in succession it being a great sight to see these big flames in kid air. During the stay in the front line both sides were busy with their artillery & trench mortars we having to suffer some very heavy bombardments which caused a large number of casualties. It was generally our people who started the bombardments & Fritz would retaliate with so much vengeance & if it had not been for the strength of our forward positions far more casualties would have been caused. patrol work was also carried out on a very large scale in no mans land of a night & it was during one of these that the battalion captured their first prisoner in France. He proved to be a sniper belonging to the Jacquer regiment being allowed to roam about the German front line sniping at any target which may show itself & he gave valuable information when brought back to out front line. At the time he was captured he was in no mans land seeking a position to do sniping the following day but showed no resistance on being captured by the patrol. The weather remain fine during this turn in the front line the troops being able to have a good sun bath of a day when things were quiet & the rations were also good & regular. During the still hours of the nights the rumble of big guns could be heard away to the south which caused the boys to wonder what was in progress. We were unexpectedly relieved by the 45th Battalion during the night of the 4th of July having to march about seven miles to a big billet in the centre of Sailly all being very tired when the march ended. it was not long before all were in bed asleep but there
[The image shows a full page hand drawn sketch of German territory, No Mans Land and Australian sectors around Fleurbaix village]