A
slight re-adjustment was thus demanded amongst the officers to give
every company a fair share of leadership and Lieut. Hammond was sent to
command "A" company.
Briefly the plan of attack was as follows. The divisional frontage was
covered by the 125th brigade on the right and the 127th brigade on the
left, with the remaining brigade in support. As far as the 127th brigade
was concerned, the attack was to be accomplished in five bounds. The
first objective, along the whole of the brigade front, was the work of
the 5th Manchesters, and consisted in capturing the German front line
which ran chiefly along Chapel Wood Switch. The next four objectives,
called for convenience the Red, Brown, Yellow and Blue Lines, were to
engage the attention of the 7th on the right and the 6th on the left of
the brigade front, and were to be taken by the leap-frog method by
companies. Thus, in the 7th, "C" company's objective was the Red Line,
"A" the Brown, "D" the Yellow, and "B" the Blue Line. These lines were
by no means parallel to one another, their shape being largely
controlled by the configuration of the ground and the German trenches.
It is also important to note that the Hindenburg system was being taken
in enfilade on this part of the front. Two or three great parallel
trenches ran along in the direction of the advance, and they were full
of deep dug-outs capable of holding thousands of men. Our main security
lay in the fact that a simultaneous attack was taking place along a
widely extended front, and the enemy would not be able to fill these
dug-outs with counter-attacking troops drawn from other fronts.
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