At this time 100 years ago, the New Zealand Division including Artillery were relieving British and Australian troops in the line at Ypres. The New Zealand 2nd Army Brigade rejoined the rest of the Division on about 6 December, after having spent several months serving at Nieuport near the coast.
Sydney Williams war record says he rejoined 'Z' Trench Mortar Battery on 3 November from hospital. However it is unclear from excerpt below from New Zealand Artillery in the Field, 1914-18, just where he was - with the Batteries being numbered.
Sydney Williams war record says he rejoined 'Z' Trench Mortar Battery on 3 November from hospital. However it is unclear from excerpt below from New Zealand Artillery in the Field, 1914-18, just where he was - with the Batteries being numbered.
The New Zealand Field Artillery moved into the line in support of their own troops in the first week in December. Batteries being still without guns, the gunners were taken up from Boeschepe in motor lorries, and took over the guns of the artillery then covering the Division. In this manner the 1stPAGE 206Brigade (less the 15th Battery, which did not go into action until some few days later) relieved the 14th Brigade, R.F.A.; the 2nd (Army) Brigade, which had returned from the Belgian coast at the end of November, relieved the 3rd Australian Field Artillery Brigade; and the 3rd Brigade relieved the 18th Brigade, R.F.A. The relief was completed by December 6th. The Brigades covering the Division were grouped as follows:— "B" Group—2nd Brigade and 52nd Brigade R.F.A., under Lieut.-Colonel Sykes; "C" Group—3rd Brigade, under Lieut.-Colonel Falla; "D" Group—1st Brigade, under Lieut.-Colonel Symon. Headquarters of "B" Group were at the Tuilleries, of "C" Group at Halfway House, and of "D" Group at Hooge Crater.
The prospect of wintering in the salient was faced with the philosophic acceptance of events that becomes a characteristic of the soldier. The men were nearly all quite familiar with the nature of the country, but the scene that unfolded itself as they left the lorries at the Birr Cross Roads, and proceeded on foot to the battery positions, was forbidding in the extreme. The way lay through the country over which the attacking divisions had fought their way in the Third Battle of Ypres, and on every hand the fighting had left its indelible impress. Nothing had been left untouched by the shell storms that had swept up and down and over every inch of the land. The roads, so busy through the long hours of darkness, were deserted by day and were littered on either side with broken waggons and limbers and ambulance carts, and all the wreckage of transport and material that accumulates along a road line during heavy fighting. Batteries of the 1st Brigade were situated about the slopes forward from Hooge Crater; the 9th and 6th (Howitzer) Batteries of the 2nd Brigade were near Glencorse Wood, and the 2nd and 5th, with the 12th Battery of the 3rd Brigade, were on the left of Westhoek; the remaining batteries of the 3rd Brigade, the 11th, 13th, and 4th (howitzer) were very close together near the Westhoek Cross Roads.
