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Rh consolidate and allow the 32nd Division to pass through them to a distant objective. As will be seen the programme allotted was, so far as the 46th Division was concerned, carried through according to plan. To the storming Infantry was allotted a few sections of Engineers for purposes as already outlined when describing Engineer preparations, while the remainder of the Divisional Engineers and the Pioneer Battalion followed close in the rear of the assaulting columns, bringing up bridging and road-making material.

The artillery programme has already been referred to above. The particular feature of both the creeping barrages was the inclusion of a proportion of “smoke” shell, this being intended to aid the concealment of movement behind our lines, and also to emphasize the “lifts” of the barrage, thus enabling the Infantry to judge more easily when a forward move was taking place. Certainly the first object of the “smoke” was achieved, though how far the artificial smoke was aided by natural fog is difficult to estimate. Owing to the fog, however, the second object was not so successful, and the lifts were not so well defined as they would have been in clear weather. In order to thicken the barrage in its initial stages, a machine-gun barrage was arranged to be super-imposed upon it. For this purpose the 2nd Life Guards M.G. Battalion and the 100th M.G. Battalion were attached to the Division, and placed under the command of the O.C. 46th M.G. Battalion, Lieutenant-Colonel D. Mathew Lannowe, D.S.O.

Two companies of tanks had been detailed by the IX Corps to cross over the Bellicourt Tunnel as soon as the Americans on the left of the Division had captured their first objectives. They were then to move down south on to the front of the 46th Division, when they