At 1.30am the guns opened fire partly to drown the noise of the hissing as the gas is discharged & then the gas is let go. The wind was now blowing at 10 miles an hour & it was raining slightly. Ten minutes after the gas was finished raiding parties started from our trenches to see if they could get into the German trenches – only one party succeeded. Another one got as far as the German wire when one of the men was hit by a shell, & shouted which alarmed a post on the flank and machine gun fire was opened. The officers & some of the men were hit. The successful part on the left got over the German parapet & found some dead Germans. At a fixed time all parties had