on 31 March the battalion had sustained 326 casualties. In April, the survivors were allocated to composite infantry battalions and saw their last action on 26 April during the Second Battle of Kemmel, part of the Battle of the Lys, after which the battalion was reduced to a training cadre. 14th Battalion (West of England) The 14th Battalion was a bantam unit of volunteers from Bristol and Birmingham who had previously been rejected for service because of their short height. It was raised in April 1915 by the Citizen's Recruiting Committee, adopted by the War Office in June 1915, and departed for France in January 1916 as part of the 105th Brigade in the 35th Division. The battalion went into the line in March, where the men's first task was to raise the height of the firing step, and its first significant action came on 8 June, when it conducted a large raid south-east of Neuve Chapelle. In July, following the capture of Trônes Wood by the 18th Division during the Battle of Bazentin, the battalion moved into the line at the northern end of the wood where, on 19 July, it suffered 107 casualties to enemy artillery. On 21 August 1917, while in the line near Épehy, the Germans attacked one of the battalion's bombing posts. Although his bombing party were driven back, Second-Lieutenant Hardy Falconer Parsons remained and prevented the enemy from entering the trenches, for which act he was posthumously awarded the VC. The battalion fought in the action of 22 October 1917 during the Battle of Passchendaele, and saw its last action on 4 February 1918, when it successfully attacked a fortified farm in the Ypres sector. Seven days later the battalion was disbanded and its men transferred to the 13th Battalion. 18th Battalion The 18th battalion was raised in 1918 from a cadre of the 5th Battalion Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, and decamped to France in August 1918 as part of the 49th Brigade in the 16th Division. It went into action on 11 September, when it successfully assaulted the Railway Triangle west of Auchy, and saw its last action on 18 September, when a German attack drove A Company from its forward posts. The battalion was disbanded in June 1919. Fifth Gloucester Gazette The Fifth Gloucester Gazette was a trench journal published from the front lines by the men of the 1/5th Battalion.