. The story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry . mmunitionwas running short, and German stick-bombs obligedme, in order to save from capture those less badlyhit, to leave Taylor, whose wound made him quitehelpless. The wire, through which SergeantMowby had been busy cutting a path, was safelypassed, and an hour afterwards we had regained thesunken road. I learnt that Jones, who had led theright of the advance, had not returned. He withhis men had narrowly missed being cut off whenthe dawn broke. During the ensuing day this partyhad to lie scattered in shell-holes till
. The story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry . mmunitionwas running short, and German stick-bombs obligedme, in order to save from capture those less badlyhit, to leave Taylor, whose wound made him quitehelpless. The wire, through which SergeantMowby had been busy cutting a path, was safelypassed, and an hour afterwards we had regained thesunken road. I learnt that Jones, who had led theright of the advance, had not returned. He withhis men had narrowly missed being cut off whenthe dawn broke. During the ensuing day this partyhad to lie scattered in shell-holes till darknessenabled them to reach our lines. The raid was hailed as a signal success for theBattalion. Two machine-guns and one protestingprisoner had been dragged back to our lines. TheGerman trenches had been over-run and many oftheir occupants had been killed or wounded. Bya satisfactory coincidence the troops whom we sur-prised were a battalion of the Jaegers, the veryregiment which after three hours bombardmenthad raided us exactly two months previously COMPANY SERGEANT-MAJOR E. BROOKS, p. ior. THE RAID AT FAYET, APRIL, I917. IOI Our losses, considering the scope of the opera-tion, were heavy, but not so proportionately to thenumber of troops of both sides engaged nor to thesevere nature of the fighting. Most of our casual-ties had bullet wounds. The list, officially, was :Killed, 1 officer and 10 other ranks; wounded, 2officers and 41; missing, 1 officer and 2. Of Tay-lor I regret to say no news was ever heard. I lefthim wounded, probably fatally, and quite incapableof being moved. The likelihood is that he diedsoon afterwards and was buried bv the enemy in thetrench where he lay. Allden and Kilby were aserious loss to the fighting efficiency of D Com-pany. For their gallantry Corporal Sloper and Ser-geant Butcher received the Military Medal andJones the Military Cross. Corporal Leather-barrow for his seadfast conduct in the sunkenroad was mentioned in di
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