When the Scottish and South African troops of the 9th Division made the great attack on Monday last the South-Africans were led forward by their colonels, and took the first German line without a single casualty. Afterwards they fought against wicked machine-gun fire, but, sweeping all before them, and gathering in hundreds of prisoners, they seized a number of guns, including several 5·9 howitzers. A vast amount of ammunition lay about in dumps, and our men turned the guns about, and are using them against the enemy. To South-Africans who fought in Delville Wood--I have told the story of this tragic epic in the battle of the Somme--this is a triumph that pays back a little for old memories under German gun-fire. Their revenge is sweet and frightful, and they call the captured guns, those monstrous five-point-nines, their trench-mortar battery.
During this fighting our airmen have flown with extraordinary valour, and have done great work. They flew in snow-storms, as I saw them and marvelled, on the east side of Arras, and circled round for hours taking photographs of the enemy's positions and spotting his batteries so accurately, in spite of weather which half blinded them, that the German gunners who are now our prisoners say that they were terrorized by being made targets for our fire.
Farther south yesterday and to-day we have made new breaches in the Hindenburg line by the capture of Wancourt and Héninel, villages south of Monchy. The fighting here has been most severe, and our men of the 14th and 56th Divisions--London Rangers, Kensingtons, Middlesex, London Scottish, and King's Royal Rifles--lying out on open slopes in deep snow and under icy gales at night, swept by machine-gun barrages from Guémappe and with the sky above them flashing with shrapnel bursts and high explosives, have had to endure a terrible ordeal. They have done so with a noble spirit, and young wounded men to whom I spoke yesterday, in the great crypt to which they had crawled down from the battlefield, all spoke of their experience as though they would go through as much again in order to ensure success, without bragging, with a full sense of the frightful hours, but with unbroken spirit.