Hill 60 Trenches

Extract from 4th Battalion War Diary

7th Mar Trenches

The trenches are in an awful state; after pretty heavy snow and a partial thaw, a great deal of them had fallen right in. We had one or two men wounded today but on the whole things were fairly quiet. Snow fell to a depth of four inches that night.

8th Mar

These two days turned out badly for us, we had two sergeants killed and a good many wounded, and very heavy shelling. The latter did a lot of damage to our trenches, which necessitated a lot of heavy work, especially owing to our very low strength.

The 10th started quietly but grew noisier as time went on, we had a few men wounded though only, although we were strafed heavily by artillery during the day. The Bn was relieved by the 5th Bn and proceeded to Square Wood.

11th, 12th, 13th, 14th

We had two more sergeants wounded, the first day and one man killed; when they shelled heavily in retaliation to ours. These other three days passed very quietly, and we were relieved on the night of 14/15th by 5th Borders; we marched back to just outside of Ypres where they had a train for us down to Poperinghe.

The 4th Bn manned the Hill 60 trenches between 1 - 11 Jan, 14 - 18 Jan, 31 Jan -3 Feb, 7 Mar - 14 Mar 1916.