A French soldier wearing the uniform of 1914/1915 stands by the side of a water-filled shell crater.
Reverse:R. Guilleminot, Bœspnug et Cie. - Paris
"October 2nd.—The Division, in tremendous repute is draining the fount of awards. But one becomes more impressed by the all-round economy of the German operations, the few men used to hold us up. Pill-box garrisons are betaking themselves to shell-holes at a little distance. That is an obviously good ruse, for it is the pill-box that magnetizes the attack, but thought and faith are needed to carry it out."
Entry for October 2, 1917 from the writings — diaries, letters, and memoirs — of Captain J. C. Dunn, Medical Officer of the Second Battalion His Majesty's Twenty-Third Foot, the Royal Welch Fusiliers, and fellow soldiers who served with him, then fighting in the Third Battle of Ypres, started on July 31. The Battle of Polygon Wood was fought on September 26, In his entry for the 28th (pp. 404–405), Dunn wrote, 'The Battalion casualties were one-third of the trench strength with which we went in : more than 60 were dead.' The Germans were then holding their front line lightly, in shell holes rather than trench lines. The pillboxes were more numerous and durable than the British had anticipated.
The War the Infantry Knew 1914-1919 by Captain J.C. Dunn, page 405, copyright © The Royal Welch Fusiliers 1987, publisher: Abacus (Little, Brown and Company, UK), publication date: 1994
1917-10-02, 1917, October, tactics, German tactics, pill box, pillbox, Polygon Wood, Battle of Polygon Wood, shell hole
