53rd Australia's Battalion

Our battalion the 53rd Australian infantry battalion arrived in France on the 27th of June, 1916. We then caught a train straight to the western front on July 10 for the first time, we spent some time there getting used to the conditions and feel for the war zone. Before we arrived in France, we were getting trained in Egypt around February. The half of us were veterans fighting in Gallipoli from the 1st battalion. The other half are like me, fresh reinforcements from Australia. We were being trained to use the weapons include: rifles, machine guns, Mills bomb, grenades and especially the bolt shot rifle. The whole training was tough but all the preparation will be useful for the battle.
Our months of preparation was over, we then moving towards