I well remember, some years before the war, when the Territorial Force was first evolved, the utter scepticism expressed of the Territorial ever being able to be made into a gunner. Infantry yes, but gunners--! And a distinguished Colonel Commandant R.A., of the old school, told me, during 1916, that Territorial Force gunners might be all right during trench warfare, but that it was absurd to think that Territorial Force drivers would ever be able to bring the guns into position in a war of movement. The advance of the batteries to Graincourt at the Battle of Cambrai, the changes of position on the Ardre, and 100 other instances prove the fallacy of such gloomy prognostications. Properly trained and instructed--and the 62nd Divisional Artillery was that--Territorial Force gunners and drivers proved themselves equal to all tasks set them. Higher praise it is impossible to bestow. In the concluding paragraph of his book, Colonel Anderson writes of "the brotherhood of officers and men" and of "steadfast and loyal comradeship." It was these virtues fostered and encouraged by men like the writer of this book, David Sherlock, Bedwell, Gadie, Woodcock, Lindsell, FitzGibbon, and many others, which enabled the 62nd Divisional Artillery to triumph over all obstacles, to achieve its deeds of valour, and to gain its brilliant successes for the glory of England and to the eternal honour of Yorkshiremen. WALTER BRAITHWAITE, _Lieut.-General_. (A former Commander of the 62nd (West Riding) Division, T.F.) _February 7th, 1920._ CHAPTER I THE FIRST ADVANCE "_Come, join in the only battle Wherein no man can fail, Where whoso fadeth and dieth Yet his deed shall still prevail._" WILLIAM MORRIS. [Sidenote: Jan. 1917.] On the 23rd December, 1916, the 62nd Division received orders to embark for France. The artillery, which was billeted in Northampton, was conveyed from Southampton to Havre on the 6th and 7th January, 1917, and thence railed to the concentration area at and around Wavans, near Auxi-le-Chateau. The weather was of the worst type that January can give, alternate frost and thaw and bitterly cold, and we began to experience at once the distressing conditions of mud and slush, which were to be so normal a feature in this and the two following winters in France and Belgium. On the 17th January the 310th and 312th Brigades sent off one section per battery by motor lorry to be attached to the 19th Division, then in the firing line, for training preliminary to taking over finally their part of the line. It was a snowy, uncomfortable sort of day, and the lorries were, as so often happened, late in arriving, with the result that the detachments did not get started on their journey till about 3 p.m., and arrived at their destination after dark. Sections from the 311th Brigade followed the next day.