The final year of the war opened with the overwhelming fury of the Kaiserschlacht—the German Spring Offensive of March 1918. Attacking out of a thick morning fog, German stormtroopers shattered the British front lines, forcing the Pioneer battalions into frantic rearguard actions.
The men of the Monmouthshires fought a desperate, bloody retreating action across the very same Somme battlefields they had bled to capture two years prior. It was a war of movement unseen since 1914, with units entirely cut off in the confusion. ► Read more...
It was a war of movement that had not been seen since 1914. Bridges were blown, supply dumps were torched, and units were entirely cut off in the confusion. As British and Empire forces struggled to stabilize the crumbling line, the casualties spiked dramatically. Men from Oakdale Pte. Arthur Owens and Gunner George Wiltshire, fell during this harrowing withdrawal, buying precious time for the Allied lines to finally hold outside of Amiens.