The 9th Battalion The Royal Irish Fusiliers was in the area south of Ypres during the Spring of 1917. The artillery preparations for the attack on the Messines-Wytschaete Ridge included a preliminary bombardment lasting seventeen days. Some of the shoots included practice barrages during daylight behind which battalions would advance towards and attack the German trenches.

The 9th Faughs made one such raid on 4 June 1917 against the Spanbroek Salient where the Battalion captured 31 enemy prisoners at a cost of two men killed and six wounded. It was described by Captain Falls:

It was a fine, sunny day, and, despite the haze of dust caused by the shelling, the whole operation could be seen in detail from the observation posts on Kemmel Hill. The barrage, though the rate of fire was but a third of what it was to be on the great day, was very impressive. It appeared a wall of curling smoke creeping slowly up the ridge. The figures of the infantrymen following it could be seen distinctly; there was the flash of bombs, and there were Germans coming from their dug-outs holding up their arms. As the party returned one man was seen to break away from it, walk back fifty yards in most leisurely fashion, summon forth two Germans whom he had evidently observed hiding in a hole, and bring them in at the point of the bayonet.