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Lieutenant-Colonel Hessey wishes God Speed to all members of the 11th Inniskillings, and thanks them for the loyal support they have given him from the raising of the Battalion to this day. He leaves the Battalion with very sincere regret, but with feelings of great pride that he has had the privilege of Commanding such a fine lot of Officers, N.C.O.'s and men, and that their esprit de corps
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During the following days we spent alternate periods in and out of the trenches, with little excitement to keep our spirits up. On May 16th we again took over from the 13th Battalion Royal Irish Rifles (Downs), and this time a spell of beautiful weather favoured us and the trenches were quite dry and habitable. We had the usual machine gun fire at night, especially from the direction of Thiepval Chateau, also a large number of shrapnel shells and whizbangs fell in our Sector. The enemy was apparently very busy during the night on his front line opposite our Company. We could hear the sound of picking and shovelling going on, and stakes being driven into the ground. During 18th-19th the enemy gave us little peace, between trench mortars, heavies, and whizbangs. Several salvoes of shrapnel managed to do considerable damage to our inspection trench and Whit Church Street. During a heavy bombardment, while the shells went over and round us at a tremendous rate I was lying flat on my stomach to avoid some shrapnel that burst near. I looked round to see if there were any casualties among the men following, and noticed a head emerging from the earth which had fallen in all round; suddenly there was a splutter, the head moved, and a very solemn voice said
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Boys o' boys it's aboot time the referee blew his whistle,