That first bound of the Infantry was to carry them to Havrincourt and Flesquières, and Havrincourt, as we saw, was to be the prize of General Braithwaite’s Troops. We shall come to the fighting in a moment. Here let us straightway say that the Division acquitted itself brilliantly. Sir Douglas Haig, in his Despatch, expressly used this rare epithet. ‘The 62nd (West Riding) Division (T.), (Major-General W. P. Braithwaite),’ he wrote, ‘stormed Havrincourt, where ... parties of the enemy held out for a time,’ and ‘operating northwards from Havrincourt, made important progress. Having carried the Hindenburg Reserve Line north of that village, it rapidly continued its attack, and captured Graincourt, where two anti-Tank guns were destroyed by the Tanks accompanying our Infantry. Before nightfall, Infantry and Cavalry had entered Anneux, though the enemy’s resistance in this village does not appear to have been entirely overcome till the following morning’ (November 21st). ‘This attack of the 62nd Division,’ added the great Field Marshal, ‘constitutes a _brilliant achievement_ in which the troops concerned completed an advance of four and a half miles from their original front, over-running two German systems of defence, and gaining possession of three villages.[95]’ As a fact, their advance on that day, the third Tuesday in November, covered a distance further in actual mileage than any other of Sir Julian Byng’s Divisions; further, indeed, than any Division of the British Army had advanced in one day under like conditions since war was engaged in the Western Front. Starting from a point just below the big bend of the Canal du Nord, they took Havrincourt by assault (which meant, among other factors, (1) secrecy, (2) Tanks and, as we show below, (3) Infantry-rush) pushed straight forward to Graincourt, and reached and occupied Anneux, at the edge of our B C road, and opposite the south side of Bourlon Wood: over 7,000 yards, as a crow flies, and a wholly exceptional day’s march for soldiers fighting every foothold.