After a brief respite where they billeted in huts in the woods of Mont-Saint-Éloi, the battalion were back in the same trenches under fire from enemy trench mortars and rifle grenades. In response, the brigade let loose an artillery bombardment and their own trench and stokes mortars, doing considerable damage to the Germans. This continued on for weeks, day after day - mortar attacks, heavy artillery bombardment, rifle grenades, nights filled with machine gun fire. The battalion would spend weeks in the trenches with only brief respites of a couple of days in reserve. The strain led to at least one Lieutenant being sent down for shell shock [13].

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The battalion stayed in this Groundhog Day for four months. On 13 August, however, Alf was involved in something far more deliberate than the daily exchange of mortar and artillery fire. At 2am, under cover of a British bombardment, a raiding party crossed No Man’s Land and entered the German trenches between the Devon and Albany craters [13].

This unit war diary names Alf personally as one of four NCOs leading the raid, with a party of 46 other soldiers. Their objective was to capture prisoners or obtain identification that could tell British intelligence which German units faced them. An operation order written a week earlier shows how carefully the raid had been planned: German wire was cut beforehand by artillery and trench mortars and the target section of trench identified precisely on a sketch map [13].

 

They bombed four dugouts and killed two German soldiers but the raid failed in its objective to secure a prisoner. After about fifteen minutes the party withdrew, with five men wounded [13].

Somewhere during these first months on the Western Front, Alf performed the act of bravery for which he received the Military Medal. The award was published in the London Gazette in December 1916 and local paper, the Eastern Post City Chronicle [44] [30]. Although neither notice specifies what Alf did to earn the award, the August trench raid is an obvious possibility — particularly because he is one of the few men named in the diary — but there is no surviving evidence tying the medal specifically to that operation. What can be said with confidence is that the award arose from his first period of fighting in France during 1916.

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In November 1916, the battalion received orders to prepare to move to the Macedonian front. They made their way by train to Marseilles in the south of France and embarked for Salonika (modern-day Thessaloniki) aboard the Menominee and Caledonia [13] [28]. 

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After arrival, the 2/17th were sent to the defence line of the XII Corps that formed part of the British Salonika Force on the Macedonian front. The Macedonian front, also known as the Salonika front, arose as a theatre of war as a result of the Allied powers attempt to aid Serbia against a combined attack from Germany, Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria [28] [29]. 

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The 2/17th were specifically stationed near Snevce by February 1917, constructing and repairing entrenchments, drainage works and road making. The Bulgarian enemy were mostly quiet, although the battalion would have experienced regular air attacks [28].

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By March 1917 the division was moving towards the Doiran sector in preparation for a British offensive against the heavily fortified Bulgarian positions. The fighting later known as the Battle of Doiran took place on 24–25 April and again on 8–9 May. The 2/17th was principally employed in support rather than leading the assaults. The offensive failed to break the Bulgarian line and cost the British forces heavily [32].

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At the beginning of July 1917, the 2/17th were sent to Egypt and then sent up the front line in Palestine to join the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, to prepare for a planned assault on Gaza. Over the summer months, when not in the line, they carried out thorough training in preparation [28]. 

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After two unsuccessful attempts to take Gaza earlier in 1917, the new offensive was designed to turn the Ottoman position rather than simply attack Gaza head-on. It opened at Beersheba on 31 October. Since ancient times Beersheba had been an important transport node. Previous sieges of Gaza during the War had been unsuccessful and Beersheba, about 40 miles south-east of Gaza was seen as a way to launch an outflanking manoeuvre and capture a regional transport hub to support logistics and eventually facilitate a march on Jerusalem to the north [33]. 

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Although in divisional reserve when the Battle of Beersheba began, the initial attack was so successful that a follow-up attack continued through the night with the 2/17th in the lead. They then went on to El Muweileh, where they concentrated with other battalions in their brigade for an attack on the Kauwukah trench system. The attack was a success and they went on to take the viaduct at Wadi es Sheria and the water supplies, however this was delayed because ammunition dumps in the town were exploding and the fires silhouetted the attackers. Lieutenant-Col Dear of the 2/17th agreed with his fellow commanding officers to make the attack when the explosions ended. They went in at 5.30 the next morning, with the 2/17th charging in silence across the wadi, then rushing four machine guns posted on a mound beyond. The Turks put up a determined resistance, but the position was quickly taken [28].

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The campaign did not end with Jerusalem. During early 1918 the division fought eastwards towards the Jordan, taking part in the capture of Jericho in February, the fighting at Tell ‘Asur in March and the two Trans-Jordan operations of March–May. Alfred's medal roll confirms that he remained in the Egypt/Palestine theatre throughout this period [28] [11].

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At the end of May 1918 the 2/17th was ordered back to the Western Front. The battalion diary allows Alf's journey to be followed almost day by day. From Palestine they travelled to Kantara, then by train to Alexandria, where they embarked aboard HMT Canberra on 16 June. Five days later they reached Taranto in southern Italy [14].

What followed was a long railway journey north through Italy and France — Foggia, Faenza, Savona, Ventimiglia and onward across France — before the battalion finally detrained at Audruicq and reached billets at Ouest Mont on 30 June. They had crossed much of the Mediterranean war in a matter of weeks [14].​

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After weeks of training and acclimatisation, the battalion returned to active fighting in Flanders. On 28 September it joined the great Allied advance that finally broke the static front in Flanders. At 5.30am three companies attacked enemy strongpoints at Ontario Farm, Mortar Farm and the Kruisstraat craters under an artillery, trench-mortar and machine-gun barrage [14].

That evening they were ordered forward again towards the Messines-Wytschaete Ridge. In the final advance in Flanders, the battalion advanced in darkness across difficult ground under machine-gun and rifle fire and gained their objective east of the Wytschaete-Messines road before dawn. Seven men were killed and 41 other ranks and two officers wounded. Six more men were killed the following day [14]. 

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Although the German army retreated in response, retreat did not mean safety. During October the 2/17th was repeatedly shelled with high explosive and gas. Men around Alf were wounded by gas and one casualty was recorded as suffering “shell shock – NYDN”, the Army's provisional classification for nervous casualties [14].

By 21 October the battalion's advance guard had reached the River Scheldt. What followed was a slow, frustrating struggle to cross. German machine guns and shellfire covered the approaches, the ground beyond the river was marshy, and bridges were either absent or damaged. Royal Engineers built rafts, ferries and footbridges while small groups repeatedly crossed to reconnoitre the far bank, only to be stopped by machine-gun posts or impassable marsh [14].

The diary makes the advance feel painfully incremental: a handful of men cross the river but no route can be found through the marsh, so they return. Another patrol goes out that night. A bridge is built. Two platoons cross and are met by machine-gun fire. Men are killed, wounded or simply recorded as missing [14].

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Finally, in the early hours of 9 November, two platoons of the battalion's C Company finally crossed the Scheldt and established themselves on the far bank without opposition. The rest of C Company followed, along with B Company, and the battalion's advance resumed. However, even then the casualties did not stop. Later that day B Company was mistakenly bombed and machine-gunned by British aircraft, killing two of its own men and wounding three [14].

Two days later, on 11 November, the Armistice came into force. At 12.15pm — just over an hour after the fighting officially ceased — the battalion began moving towards Flobecq. The next diary entries are almost jarring in their ordinariness: cleaning billets, inspecting equipment and preparing to move again [14].

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Alf's medal roll confirms his Flanders service ended on the 15th of March, 1919. However, many members of his battalion remained on the Continent (in Boulogne) for several months more [11] [14]. ​