"The hill near by was so steep that it took two hours to get supplies up to the top. Another hillside was so precipitous that the only way troops could get up the terraced slopes was by the men standing on each other's shoulders. So nearly perpendicular was the hill that the Turks on the top could not fire on the climbers till they were at close quarters. While the Irish and Yeomen were advancing, men in reserve were making roads for the guns, which had to be hauled by hand, and when Yeomen captured Beitunia they had a whole brigade of guns just behind their front line, though it was sometimes necessary for a whole company of infantry to haul one gun, which at moments was dangling in the air. "Welsh and Home Counties troops also took part in beating off the attack on Jerusalem. They had taken Zanby and White Hill, north of the Jericho road, and held White Hill against three counterattacks. On the 27th the Turks attacked all day, and White Hill became no-man's-land, but Zanby was held. Fighting was at bombing distance. At dusk the enemy tried to take White Hill, but the Welshmen charged with the bayonet and killed over a hundred Turks. Farther south a post at the village of Obeid was attacked by 700 of the enemy, who surrounded it and fired 400 shells into the monastery, but the Middlesex men, who were the garrison of the post, held out, their casualties being trifling." Immediately following the defeat which the British inflicted on the Turks, the former succeeded in advancing their lines north of Jerusalem still another mile. During January, 1918, there was little activity on the Palestine front. In the last week of the month there was, however, considerable aerial activity. On January 22, 1918, the Turkish camps and depots on the railway west of Sebustieh, Samaria, were raided. On January 24, 1918, two Turkish aeroplanes were wrecked in aerial combats. On January 25, 1918, British bombing squadrons surprised a body of some 2,000 Turkish troops in close formation near Hawara, on the Jerusalem-Nablus road four and one-half miles south of Nablus. Half a ton of bombs were dropped on the column before it could disperse. At the same time a camp of mounted troops was bombed and the animals were stampeded. Twelve Turkish aeroplanes were destroyed during the month of January, 1918. During the night of January 30, 1918, the British line was again advanced slightly in the vicinity of Arnutieh, a ruined site, on the Sheehem road, twelve miles north of Jerusalem. On the morning of January 31, 1918, a British reconnoitering detachment penetrated the village of Mukhmas, eight miles north-northeast of Jerusalem, repulsed Turkish counterattacks, and withdrew during the following night, having accomplished its object. During the night of February 2, 1918, Turkish patrols were active between Arnutieh and Sheikh Abdulla, one mile east of Arnutieh. Attempts to penetrate the British lines at these points, however, were repulsed.