War Diary Report on Raid

Report on Raid carried out by 2^nd Battalion Otago Regiment on night of 11/12^th July 1916.
By Lieut-Col A Moore Officer Commanding Attack

A raid was carried out from T80 this morning in accordance with my special order No 6 of 11th July 1916. The raiding party was prepared and acquainted with its orders. It left our trenches starting at 1:30 a.m. in following order: -

1:30am. The wiring party moved out Sgt Anderson.

1:35am. The rest of the party was taken out by Captain Bremner, into No Man’s Land, Assault party first, followed by right Bombing and Blocking party left Bombing and Blocking party on the right flanking party with one Lewis Gun. Kept flanking party with one Lewis Gun and lastly the stretcher bearers and signallers.

The O.C. Raid carried out his orders as far as possible. The flank guards took up their positions in good time and the wiring party got as near the wire as possible. Closely followed by the assaulting party.

At 1:58 a.m. the wirecutters reported that there was no gap in the enemy’s wire although the wire had been patrolled for 100 yards. The O.C. Raid was hesitatingly pushing only 20 yards from the enemy’s wire and could clearly see and hear steam from the enemy’s sentry that it was quite possible to get through the wire in the short time at his disposal and made up his mind to retire, but on his way back received some casualties from enemy’s shell and mortars.

Our artillery bombardment was excellent. It put a splendid barrage in the enemy front and support trenches from 1.40am to 1.50am and then lifted to the support and rear trenches and the communication trenches. Our artillery stopped at 2.5am and I did not ask for more because I wished the enemy barrage to slacken and thus enable me to get some information from the O.C. Raiding party. The enemy’s artillery put a heavy barrage on to our front line and support line Trenches almost immediately, our guns opened and ceased fire shortly after ours stopped.

The telephone communication was good from O.C. Attack to Brigade Headquarters, but was not quite satisfactory in as much as O.C. attack was not connected direct to officer in charge of Roll Call post. The signal party which went out with the raiders failed to get communication quickly enough. It was only just at the last that they got on and then it was too late.

The raid was a failure because the wire was not cut by our guns and mortars as had been reported and was so thick that it could not have been cut in the short time at the disposal of the raiding party.

Casualties:       Killed                                                              Wounded
                         8/2683 Pte McNab                                         2nd Lt France
                         8/4499 Pte W. Walker                                    2nd Lt Paterson
                         8/3983 Pte E.McMahon                                 and 4 other ranks
                         8/4073 Pte J.M. McLaren

Missing: Three other ranks. These are supposed to be wounded and have been evacuated to No 2 Field Ambulance. A patrol was sent out by the O.C. Raid this morning to make certain that nobody was left in No Man’s Land. This patrol reported that they could find nothing but the remains of one man killed.