THE GALLANT 55th.

Gisborne Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 4846, 18 April 1918, Page 5

THE GALLANT 55th.

SIR DOUGLAS HAIG’S TRIBUTE

TROOPS’ REMARKABLE FEATS

Australian and N.Z. Cable Association

LONDON. April 16. Sir Douglas Haig; in a supplementary despatch, deals with the gallant fighting of the Fifty-fifth Division, comprising West Lancashire Territorials, on April 9, when holding a front of six thousand yards from (La Bassee Canal to southward of Riclie-bourg-l’Avoue, where the line joinedthe Portuguese.' The enemy's attack on the southern portion of this front was delivered by three regiments well up to strength. A captured enemy order says :—The three regiments will be opposed at the most by six companies in tlie first line. It describes the Britishers composing the Fifty-fifths as having lost heavily in the Somme, Flanders, and Cambrai fighting—“a division fit-to hold a quiet sector,? as it is below the average duality.” Sir Douglas Haig says: If the enemy expectation was that the opposition would not he very serious, it was signally disappointed. ’ \_The Fifty-fifths beat all early _ attacks in the forward zone, and maintained its line intact.

AVhen they learned that the Germans had broken through the Portuguese on their left, the Fifty-fifths formed a defence flank and maintained this new line practically unchangel until relief came through. They had six; days’ almost continual fighting, during which they beat off repeated attacks, with the heaviest losses to the enemy, and talcing nearly a thousand prisoners. Sir Douglas Haig describes further fierce fighting, including a heavy bombardment of the whole front occupied by the Fiftv-fifths, followed by" an’ attack in strength, and concludes: “The enemy was again repulsed, with heavy losses, by the most gallant and most successful defence of the division, whiter he had been pleased to describe as consisting cl second-class troops.”