The 1st Royal West Kents, otherwise “The Gallant Half-Hundred,” and the 2nd King’s Own Scottish Borderers, who were for so long in garrison in Dublin, were entrusted with the initial attack. Officers and non-commissioned officers received their instructions as to the order in which the storming parties were to go forward, ammunition and bombs were laid ready, the doctors selected their regimental aid-posts, where first aid is administered to the wounded, and all along the line the requisite measures were taken for the replenishment without delay of the supplies in men, ammunition, and provisions as the wastage of the fight should make itself felt. So it is before every engagement. Meanwhile the West Kents and the K.O.S.B.’s spent a long day in the trenches on the fateful April 17, waiting for the shadows to fall and the hands of the watch to point to 7 p.m. When an attack of this kind is impending men’s nerves are strung up tight. It speaks well for the discipline of these two battalions that they stood the test without a trace of nerves. Thin blue threads of smoke were rising from the German trenches into the clear evening air when, with a dull, low thud, accompanied by a billowing quiver of the earth, the summit of Hill 60 was blown sky-high in an immense black spout of earth and débris and human fragments. Immediately afterwards, with a deafening roar, the second mine went up--exploding, it is believed, a German mine with it, so loud was the report. In the space of a minute or two five mines were touched off, and immediately after our artillery opened rapid fire on all the German positions in the vicinity, on the woods in the rear, on the ruins of Zwartelen village on the left (see map), and on the railway cutting. As our guns spoke, Major Joslin, who was commanding the West Kents’ storming party, standing beside the Royal Engineers officer who fired the mines, blew the charge on his whistle, and the attack got away, the bombers in front. The Germans were as completely surprised as they were at Neuve Chapelle. Their trenches had been practically obliterated, and in their place appeared five yawning craters, the largest of which measured about 50 yards across by 40 feet deep. These gulfs were filled with dead and wounded men. A few Germans made a show of resistance, but were speedily accounted for. Many who fled headlong across the open behind their trenches were mown down by our machine-guns, which had been expecting this development. The West Kents went through the craters and bombed their way down the communication trenches into the German support trenches, while digging parties of the K.O.S.B.’s set about making trenches across the lips of the craters. At 7.20 p.m. Hill 60 was ours.