CHAPTER S1V the First Attack on the 1St Australian Division's New Front At
CHAPTER S1V THE BATTLE OF THE LYS-(11) APRIL llTH-%TEI THE first attack on the 1st Australian Division’s new front at Hazebrouck was made shortly after midnight of the 13th’ when a company of Germans came marching up a cross- country lane leading from Verte Rue to the Rue du Bois, across the Australian front. Behind a hedge bordering this lane was a Lewis gun post’ of Lieutenant Murdoch’s’ platoon of the centre company (Captain Fox’sS), 8th Battalion. The approaching troops, who were seen at some distance, were allowed to march without alarm to within twenty yards, when the Victorians blazed at them from every barrel, and continued to pour a withering fire into the Germans, whose survivors panicked and fled. Murdoch and some of his men went out and found a German officer and twenty men of the 141st Infantry Regiment dead, (Attack shown by artow.) and five abandoned machine-guns. Two nights later a sixth gun was found. The history of the I4rst I.R. (35th Division) states that on.ApriU 13, when the I and I1 Battalions of the regiment were held up after taking Verte Rue, the reserve battalion-the 111-was ordered to advance northwards on their right and seize Rue du Bois4 The battalion advanced in almost full force, with only the 10th company in reserve. “ Unfortunately,” says the history, “ no attack patrols were ahead of the front, and so it happened that, when the road had nearly been reached, machine-gun fire struck against the leading company. Many pressed back.
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