The Queen's (Royal West Surrey) Regiment 20th April 1916

20^th April 1916–

1st Battalion – Ordinary routine. Riding school started for young officers.

2nd Battalion – Between 2.30 & 3pm enemy again shelled MANSEL COPSE with 77mm guns & 10.5 cm Hows. At about 9.20pm MANSEL COPSE was again shelled but our artillery was ready & replied instantaneously. At 10.14 & again at 10.30pm our Heavy Artillery opened on MAMETZ & enemy’s trenches in front of us & did excellent work. The South Staffords relieved us tonight, after 8 days in the trenches.

During morning our trenches were shelled by 77mm guns. At 7.30pm to the minute the enemy opened concentrated artillery & trench mortar fire on B 2 Subsector (chiefly MANSEL COPSE) For an hour this continued during which time our guns had opened with intense retaliation. The regiment on our immediate left is the 2^nd Borders (20^th Bde) & it was against them that the enemy made this raid. It is still unkown for certain whether the enemy actually entered the Borders trenches & secured a few prisoners. The Borders casualties were 1 Officer & 18 O.R. Killed, & 2 Officers & about 40 O.R. wounded. Our trenches were slightly shelled – 2 wounded. All was normal again by 10pm.

Officers 34.    Other Ranks 926.

Wounded 2.

Reinforcement 30 O.R.

2/4^th Battalion –

1/5^th Battalion -

1/6^th Battalion – The day was quiet, till 5pm when enemy opened intense bombardment with heavy T.M’s on the two right Coys bombardment stopped at 7pm. The night was quiet, except enemy’s M.G’s were active.

Casualties 3 killed 17 wounded 2^nd Lieuts A.J. Sells & F.C. Woods reported for duty from 3^rd Bn.

7^th Battalion –

8^th Battalion – The Bn was relieved by the 8^th R.W. Kent regt. Relief complete 1am & the Bn went back into Bde Reserve.

Disposition as follows:-

H.Q C & D Coys at KANDHAR FARM. (T 10 b.7.8), A, B & Specialists at AIRCRAFT FARM (N 32 c 9 8).

20^th – 26^th April

The Bn remained in Reserve. Bn H.Q. moved to BUS FARM (N 33 d 4 1) on the night of the 24^th.