On the 3rd, as resistance stiffened, the frontage was narrowed. A Brigade of the 29th Division had just relieved the 31st Division troops on the right for the assault on the very important position of Hill 63. The new objective of the 108th Brigade was from White Gates, at the western foot of this hill, to South Midland Farm. At 9-30 a.m. the 12th Rifles and 1st Irish Fusiliers went forward. In the early stages they had artillery support. Thereafter, owing to constant movement and the difficulty of ascertaining the position of the front line, the only assistance that could be rendered by the artillery was by fire on objectives far in rear, save for occasional opportunities that came the way of single mobile guns. The attack resolved itself into individual assaults upon German machine-gun positions, which were taken in flank by Lewis guns worked forward, and then rushed with the bayonet. Three were thus taken, and their detachments killed or captured, while none of the latter, which ran before the infantry came upon them, escaped without loss from our fire. By evening the line ran from L'Alouette, a mile east of Neuve Eglise, to La Plus Douve Farm, a famous old battalion headquarters of the 36th Division, south-east of Wulverghem. The whole of this front was taken over after dark by the 9th Irish Fusiliers, which battalion had not yet been in action. The 108th Brigade's attack next morning began at 8-30 a.m. under a creeping barrage. Half an hour prior to it, on the extreme right, the 9th Irish Fusiliers advanced about a hundred yards toward Hill 63, to support an attack on the hill by troops of the 29th Division. The attack was completely successful. Hill 63 was of the greatest importance to the enemy, and was very strongly held, as was proved by the capture of nearly two hundred and fifty prisoners by the men of the 29th Division. The hill being in British hands made affairs far easier for the 108th Brigade. The advance of the 9th Irish Fusiliers met with considerable opposition. Gaps appeared, and there was some loss of direction, not astonishing when it is considered that the battalion was on a frontage of over a mile. Eventually a company of the 1st Irish Fusiliers had to be brought up on the right flank, on the Neuve Eglise-La Basseville Road. Before noon all objectives were attained. On the right the 1st Irish Fusiliers had advanced beyond White Gates. On the left, Gooseberry Farm, a mile east of the starting-line, was in the hands of the 9th. All had gone excellently so far. But the British were now facing positions which the Germans desired to hold for some time longer, for which they were prepared to fight. An immediate local counter-attack down the Douve valley was repulsed with the aid of artillery fire. But at 4-15 p.m., after a heavy bombardment, the enemy launched a counter-attack from the south-west on this part of the line. Gooseberry Farm and Stinking Farm[60] were lost, and the line driven back five hundred yards.