Page:Breaking the Hindenburg Line.djvu/83

Rh the attack had recommenced, three more Brigades in rearward positions ceased fire, limbered up, and moved across No Man's Land, taking up positions between our old front line and the Canal, from which they were able to take their part in the final protective barrage. One of these latter Brigades was heavily shelled and suffered many casualties, and the personnel was withdrawn from the guns for a short time until the worst of the shelling was over.

During the pause between the two phases of the attack, the Engineers of the Division were engaged mainly in superintending the work on forward roads, both west and east of the Canal, and in repairing existing bridges over the Canal. In particular, it was discovered that the stout concrete dam, already mentioned as having been utilized by the Infantry of the 137th Brigade in crossing the Canal, might easily be repaired and adapted to take horsed transport, so with praiseworthy initiative Lieutenant T. H. Midgley, of the 466th Field Company, who had already distinguished himself by his dash during the attack on the Canal, at once set his men to this work. The bridges were repaired or adapted by the early afternoon, and, at 3 p.m., field guns and horsed transport commenced to cross the Canal.

The sections attached to the 137th Infantry Brigade had rendered the Riqueval Bridge serviceable very early in the day, and had withdrawn the demolition charges from several other bridges which had been mined by the enemy, but left by him undestroyed. One N.C.O., Corporal Openshaw of the 466th Field Company, R.E., was in the forefront of the attack on one of the German bridges, personally accounting for a machine-gun nest to the west of the bridge, bayoneting two of the pioneers who were guarding it, and receiving the surrender of the third,