At 11.30 a.m. the Duke of Wellington’s (The West Riding) Regiment, 2nd Battalion, arrived to relieve the K.O.S.B.’s and West Kents, who by this time had been able to retain possession of only three of the craters on the near side of the hill (the three right-hand craters in the map). “The Duke’s,” as they are called, did magnificently that day. “The Old Duke would be as proud of you to-day as he was when he commanded you,” the Brigadier said afterwards in addressing the shattered remnant of the battalion that came away from the hill. Despite the rain of shells and bombs, they held on grimly all through the day. By the early afternoon the Germans had recaptured the whole of the hill save only for a section behind the second and third craters (counted from the right in the map), where “The Duke’s” still resisted. Their General saw them clinging to the brown, scarred ridge “like a patch of flies on the ceiling.” The day wore on and “The Duke’s” still held out. It was decided to relieve the pressure on them by a counter-attack with artillery support. The King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry were brought up, and at six o’clock “The Duke’s,” their numbers thinned, it is true, by heavy casualties, particularly in officers, were over the parapet and away, their fellow county men of Yorkshire at their heels. Behind came some of the K.O.S.B.’s and the “Q. Vic.’s” (the Queen Victoria Rifles, that well-known London Territorial battalion). These young Londoners covered themselves with glory in this day’s fighting and later. Second Lieutenant Woolley, one of their subalterns, won the Victoria Cross for a magnificent display of endurance and gallantry. “B” Company of “The Duke’s,” on the right, reached the German trenches, and established themselves there with slight loss; “C” Company had to cross open ground, got badly hammered, and only Captain Barton and eleven men reached their objective. They never stopped to see how many men they had lost, however. They went for their crafty enemy with bayonet and bomb, and killed or routed every man in the trench. Their blows would have been struck doubly hard had they known what stood before. “D” Company, on the left, had also a patch of open country to traverse. All its officers were killed or wounded in its passage over the broken ground swept by shell and machine-gun fire, but with the help of the stout-hearted Yorkshire Light Infantry it managed to secure the trench. Hill 60 was ours once more. It would still be in our hands to-day but for the German crime against civilization and humanity, the nameless horror of the asphyxiating gas. Sir John French said as much in his despatch on the second battle of Ypres (dated “Headquarters, June 15”). Referring to the loss of Hill 60, the Commander-in-Chief wrote: