June 6th 1916
We had to pack our kits, and proceed up the line, we passed through Bayencourt, and then in artillery formation to Sailly-au-bois, and from here we marched in single file along a very muddy road, where in places men sank knee deep in mud, at last we reached the ruined town of Hebuterne, 400yds from our front line, there are no civilians here as the place is subject to heavy fire every day, we were billeted in the cellars of an old farm house which was minus a wall and the roof.
I took a stroll round the place after tea and found it absolutely ruined a church at one end had been badly battered and the walls all smashed and the roof gone, one side of the tower standing only, but a noticeable fact was that a crufic [crucifix?] in a most conspicuous place remained untouched.

June 7th 1916
We left our billets and went to the edge of the village, moving undercover of the broken walls, then entered a communication trench called 'Yale Street' (of y sector y29) moved along this trench in daylight for 300yds and then we were only 100yds from our own front line, and 400yds from the enemy front line, this 'com' trench was in places only 3ft deep, and we were exposed to the enemy fire, and our own work was to deepen this trench to 7ft, also make it wide enough for two men to pass, no earth could be thrown on top, but had to be put in sandbags and passed down the trench.

Everything went well 'till 3o'clock in the afternoon when 'Jerry' started to strafe, and strafed us away from the work, and managed it without any casualties, during the time we were working we had to keep our equipment on, also rifles at hand, and leaving the trench we looked 'rum cutters' being covered with mud and clay, all around the place were 'gas alarms'. This day was the first time I had been close to the enemy lines, and the first time I had got as far as a Support trench.

June 8th 1916
We worked in Yale Street Trench again, also in trench 48 which was much deeper, and about 10am our artillery opened a heavy strafe on the enemy trenches, and in reply the Germans shelled us heavily, and there being no dug outs here we were compelled to stick it, and chance our luck, there were no casualties, but four men got buried and had to be dug out, they were badly shaken, later a shell dropped on the parapet above four men and one had his leg blown off, and the trench was wrecked and we were compelled to move down a little way.

June 9th 1916
We fell in at 8-30p.m and entered "Wood Street communication trench" and passed the old fire trench and went up "New Wood Street" which was only about 2 ft deep, then got on the top, passed our front line which was being held by "The Rifle Rangers", through a gap in the barbed wire, we were paced out so many paces per man as a digging task, and told to dig ourselves in as quickly as possible.

We worked hard for about 2 an hour when the Germans opened heavy machine gun fire on us and swept us like a blanket, and being only 100 yds from the enemy lines it proved very trying, we carried on, off and on, for : of an hour when, when he got more machine guns sweeping that sector, by this time my part of the trench was about 18" deep so I could lie in it.

The machine guns keep on sweeping and the enemy opened out a "miniweffer" (trench mortar) barrage, four of our rifles were laying on the ground about 4 ft away and these got a direct hit, that was the last I saw of my rifle, also blew the trench away and left us as it were on the open ground.

The man in front of me called for help and on going to him I found he had a piece of shrapnel in the left shoulder blade, this was Private Joe (Hurnival of Runcorn), also he was hit on the lower middle part of the back, many men at this time were calling for help, out of our Platoon we had three casualties L/Cpl Fineflow who was hit in the back and the pieces had pierced the lungs he was vomiting a lot of blood, and Pte Edward Coalthorpe (of Chester) who was hit in ribs and left arm, one man in No10 Platoon was also hit, Stretcher Bearer Mostan, he was serious as he was hit in the lower part of the stomach and between the legs, after we had got the wounded away we returned to billets, it was 6a.m.

June 10th 1916
We worked from 11 o'clock in the morning until 2-45 p.m. when we returned to our billets and fell in again at 8p.m. and worked on top in the same place as the night previous, and returned at 2 a.m, and we had one casualty, this being the Corporal Brooks who was hit in the right wrist, the centre of the wrist being blown clean out.

This night when a shell burst mud and stones flew all around and I had my knee cut through being struck with a stone. This was Whit Sunday morning.


http://www.first-world-war.co.uk/thediary.htm#06061916