Somme
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Lieutenant Colonel Frank Maxwell VC, 12th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment, 54th Brigade, 18th Division
The end result of these actions was that White Trench was successfully overrun, a link was firmly established beyond Fricourt with the neighbouring 21st Division and the whole line safely consolidated before nightfall.
Further north at La Boisselle the 19th Division had moved forward to augment the generally shattered 34th Division. After considerable delays caused by the general chaos, an attack was ordered to push forward from the captured Schwaben Höhe into La Boisselle itself. After an imaginative artillery ruse had deflected most of the German batteries’ attention on to a possible assault on Ovillers, they did better than many must have expected, moving forward under the cover of a solid artillery barrage and managed to fight their way into La Boisselle. The staff officer Captain D.H. James was acting as a liaison officer between the 34th and 19th Divisions.
I went with a colonel of the Cheshire Regiment to explore La Boisselle. On the way, we discovered that the tunnel (Kerriemuir) was choked with dead and wounded. We straightened that out and went across No Man’s Land. When we got to the village, about 12.30 p.m., we found an officer and a few men in possession of the left flank—skirting Mash Valley. I took over, and the Colonel went back to bring up reinforcements. The Hun started a bombing attack so I counterattacked shortly after 1p.m., drove him back until my party was blotted out by shrapnel and I was sent to earth myself. Later on I crawled back out of their bombing range, found I could still walk—I had bullets in my back and right lung, but did not know that—so I decided to hobble back to Divisional Headquarters and report to General Williams. I staggered into my tent, near the mill, and my orderly helped me to change my shirt and tunic, then I saw the General. He gave me some tea, sent for General Kirby, and we had a talk about La Boisselle. By then I was very tired, and all-in. Colonel Parkin helped me across to the field hospital in the mill, where they dressed my wounds.5
Captain D.H. James, Headquarters, 34th Division
The position was eventually consolidated after a thorough search to eradicate the Germans still lurking in the linked cellars and strong points hidden below the scattered rubble. A line was eventually established just short of the church in the middle of the village. Bloody, murderously inconsequential, fighting would continue there for several more days.
Meanwhile in the south the process of consolidation and simultaneous preparation for the next phase in the offensive was being carried out all around Montauban. The Scottish territorials of the 9th Division had taken over Montauban from the triumphant Mancunians of 30th Division who had captured it on 1 July. To their immense gratification, in addition to the newly consolidated trenches, they received some intelligence of great practical value.
The Manchesters, before leaving, told us the brick kilns were a vast storehouse of special supplies. Suspected of being booby trapped, they had been ordered not to explore the area until the Royal Engineers had given it a clean bill of health. But a few bold spirits had inspected the labyrinth of storerooms, bringing back canned whole hams of delectable mouth watering tenderness, also brandy, chocolate, cigars etc., the Germans obviously building up for their usual generous Christmas handout to troops. Appreciating it was only a matter of time before the ‘Boffins’ heard about this Aladdin’s cave, when the Manchesters reached their rest billets, we hastily dug shallow holes, filling them with the choicest items, then we shaped the mounds like rough graves, complete with wooden crosses inscribed, ‘Here lies a German Soldier’. Lies being the cogent word I suppose. As the days passed in preparation for our attack on the fortress village of Longueval across the valley on the hilltop, we revelled in a kind of gastronomic euphoria and it was now evident that the Manchesters had kept the secret and no one was coming to investigate.6
Private Barney Dowries, 9th Battalion (Scottish Rifles), Cameronians, 27th Brigade, 9th Division
One great boon was that on 3 July patrols discovered that Bernafay Wood had been abandoned by the Germans and that night it was occupied by the 9th Division. In a similar fashion the 18th Division painlessly occupied Caterpillar Wood on 4 July. Yet although the Germans were obviously staggering in this sector, their Second Line system still remained intact. The British field artillery would have to be moved well forward if they were to be able to have the range to deluge these new targets with shells. This was a time consuming and difficult process as all the guns would have to be re-registered on their likely targets from the new observation posts.
The artillery officers were keen to see for themselves at close quarters the effect of their shell fire on the targets in the German lines. By this time Montauban was no longer recognisable as the pleasant village it had once been before total war came to the Somme. Concentrated artillery fire had smashed everything down, rending brick from brick, splintering, powdering and cratering. And, of course, it was not just the British shells that had caused the damage. Since 1 July the village had been targeted relentlessly by the German guns.
I was appalled by the sight of what artillery fire can do to a place. Nothing of what I had ever seen or even imagined comes near to the destruction which has been wrought here. Many thousands of big shells have been fired into this place by us, and since we took it the Boche has never ceased to pound it with 5.9s. It now represents a mass of huge shell craters and some heaps of bricks, among which, every now and then, more unpleasant sights come in view. Along the north edge of the ruins, the Royal Scots had now scratched a sort of trench in which at the time I was there, they all slept—all deadbeat. Picking my way along this trench, I could not tell which were men sleeping and which dead men, both were lying side by side. I found a spot out of which one could get a good view of Longueval and Bazentin, and then went back and got a wire laid out to this spot.7
Lieutenant William Bloor, C Battery, 149th Brigade, Royal Field Artillery, 30th Division
The work of the guns remained of paramount importance, the next set of targets had to be identified, registered and destroyed. There was no room for sentiment.
3 July 1916
While the artillery prepared for the next great leap forward in the south, it was considered crucial to try and pin the Germans in the more northerly sectors—to keep the German attention firmly fixed on the Pozières Ridge and away from where the next assault would actually be made. To this end early on the morning of 3 July, it was planned to make twin diversionary thrusts on Ovillers and Thiepval. These were to be carried out by the 12th and 32nd Divisions who had fallen under the command of General Gough and his newly constituted Reserve Army. Unfortunately, like many diversionary actions, these were to prove excessively grim and sanguinary affairs. As the men of the 12th Division awaited the attack, they had few illusions as to what lay before them. Amongst them were two brothers.
Fred and I talked together for a few minutes. We then shook hands and wished each other good luck tomorrow. Much has been written about men saying goodbye to each other before going into battle, but we were brothers and the only sons of our parents and looking at what had happened to the 8th Division our chances of survival looked slender. He told me that the parents of Captain Matthews had sent him out a bulletproof waistcoat, but he didn’t intend wearing it when we went over the top in the morning. Captain Matthews had told Fred that he was going to die tomorrow, waistcoat or no waistcoat, so why wear chain mail, which was an encumbrance.8
Signaller Sidney Kemp, 6th Battalion, Royal West Kent Regiment, 37th Brigade, 12th Division
The attitude of the men in the ‘jumping off’ trenches was understandably sombre. The veterans of previous battles who had already had some experience of going over the top affected a pragmatic calm that amazed newcomers from recent drafts.
Jack Webb, and I, and a new chap whose name I didn’t know, who had only recently joined us from a big draft of chaps, were to be B Company’s signallers, with me in charge. Being old soldiers, now, Jack Webb and I found a dugout, we lit cand
les, got out our next day’s rations, ate the lot and washed it down with water, feeling that at least if we were to die the rats wouldn’t get our grub. Our poor mate was petrified with fear and there was nothing we could do to help him. Well we had a smoke or two, talked about anything except what was happening later on today and the time went. Afterwards we met another new chap who told us that while Jack Webb and I were eating and talking, he was lying petrified on his stomach on the bottom of the trench outside, too frightened to move, yet able to listen to our conversation and he thought us marvellous. We told him we had just got used to that sort of thing and that was the truth. You can get used to almost anything if you try.9
Signaller Sidney Kemp, 6th Battalion, Royal West Kent Regiment, 37th Brigade, 12th Division
Their fatalism would be tested to the limits of human tolerance. The artillery bombardment began at 0215 and after an hour they attacked Ovillers at 0315. The German front line was initially only lightly held, but when the West Kents moved forward the machine-gun fire gradually increased in density as the German garrison emerged from their dugouts.
We signallers moved out of the dugout just before 3 a.m. We found that part of B Company was already out in No Man’s Land. We got up over the parapet and went towards the German lines. I went over to the German trench and there wasn’t anyone else about and it wasn’t yet quite light. I went back a bit looking for Webb and the other signaller, when suddenly the German machine guns went into action. I was suddenly standing alone out in No Man’s Land, with everyone else either killed, wounded or the few that were left, down on the ground, I could feel the bullets going past me and yet I didn’t get hit by any. I then got down on the ground still having my telephone and my rifle. I saw Captain Harris get up as he was going to advance again and he toppled over dead. I crawled to where Webb was and together we crawled nearer to the German trench and there we stayed with a few of D Company who hadn’t gone over into the second line of German trenches with Captain Matthews. He was killed, as well as Captain Barnett of A Company and the captains of both the other companies. When daylight really broke, there we were, Webb and I and those few chaps from D Company, tucked up right under the German trench, against the wire. I was lying on the outside, trying with Webb’s help to grub a bit of soil from under me, when suddenly a German sniper saw me moving and aimed two shots: one behind and the other at my head. They hit my tin hat a bit too high up and glanced off into the air. I lay still and let him think he had killed me. On my left lay a chap badly wounded, who begged me to help him. I told him I couldn’t save myself and said be quiet! But being in pain, he continued to move about and was soon killed by a sniper’s bullet. We stayed under that German trench all that day and wasn’t it a long hot day too? The sun blazed down and yet we couldn’t move off.10
Signaller Sidney Kemp, 6th Battalion, Royal West Kent Regiment, 37th Brigade, 12th Division
The horror and desperation of their situation needs no false emphasis. Marooned under the very noses of the Germans they had no alternative but to endure or die. Kemp lay out there all that long summer’s day until at last the light began to fade.
We whispered that as soon as it got dark enough, we would make a dash for our lines. Suddenly from about 15 yards from where we were a chap who was lying facing the German lines got up in a kneeling position and put his rifle up to his shoulder and fired over me. I looked round and just behind me was a German soldier coming through their wire, but our chap had toppled him. We then got up and bolted, as we thought, towards our lines. Instead we ran parallel with the German line. When we came to a deep shell hole we got into it. There was a sergeant from D Company with us and he said it was our wire. I told him, ‘It’s German wire and if you wait as soon as some more Very lights of ours go up, I will take you to our lines!’ I did this but not before the chap who shot the German was himself shot when he got tangled on our barbed wire.11
Signaller Sidney Kemp, 6th Battalion, Royal West Kent Regiment, 37th Brigade, 12th Division
Very few men of the five battalions that had attacked Ovillers that morning managed to return to the British lines unscathed. Kemp was fortunate, but his brother was wounded and had to be evacuated to hospital. Many of the others had been shot to bits. The cost of failure came to nearly 2,400 officers and men.
If anything the attack made three hours later on Thiepval was an even worse disaster. The scale of this attack had been reduced due to the intervention of Haig and instead of the best part of three divisions just two brigades were to be sent into the fray. On the left was the 14th Brigade of the 32nd Division while on the right was the 75th Brigade, which had been attached specially for the attack from the 25th Division. It is fair to say that many of the officers of 75th Brigade were unhappy with the prospect of what lay before them.
Colonel Cotton had done all he could to dissuade a damn fool brigadier not to attempt it; a damn fool to whom the vital decision had been left by the divisional commander. A brigadier who had never reconnoitred the ground nor read a map intelligently. A brigadier who had collapsed when almost the first shell fired in retaliation for our barrage landed outside his headquarters killing his staff captain and three of the four adjutants in his unfortunate brigade.12
Second Lieutenant Sydney Stevenson-Jones, 2nd Battalion, South Lancashire Regiment, 75th Brigade, 25th Division
The frontage of attacks had been varied late in the day and on their way up into the line that night the 75th Brigade had been severely delayed, which caused a postponement for three hours. Unfortunately, most of the supporting artillery were not informed and hence fired off their barrage at 0315 as originally intended, leaving little ammunition for when it was needed. All the battle arrangements were utterly rushed and an atmosphere of utter chaos prevailed. Second Lieutenant Sydney Stevenson-Jones was with the reserve company of the 2nd South Lancashires when the attack went in at 0615 on the morning of 3 July.
Word came down to ‘stand to’ for the attack. I grabbed my equipment and had hardly got it on when the order came along to: ‘File out for the charge!’ and our guns ceased firing. We, that is, B Company, rushed up the communication trench only to find it hopelessly blocked by a company of another battalion coming down. By then there wasn’t more than a handful of D Company left, who had gone over first on our right. I just saw Captain Bill Gates lead the head of A Company out under a withering machine-gun and rifle fire and the fag end of C going out on our left dropping like rabbits. We shunted again to let another company pass and I came up again to see Gates rally the last of A for another rush. Captain Charles Rathbone told me to keep in touch and come back and report to him. I saw nothing but bravery on all sides that day. I saw Captain Alexander Blair lead out his company with a cane in his hand as on parade, still lead on when almost alone. I saw big Lieutenant Eric Fletcher, his senior subaltern walk on alone right up to the German wire (which was totally uncut, in spite of what we had been told) empty his long-nosed Colt into the Germans standing on their parapet firing at him, but they could not bring him down, until one got him and he fell across the wire and hung there all day, the Colt swinging from the lanyard buttoned under his shoulder strap. I saw big Company Sergeant Major Collins, all 6 feet 3 inches of him walk out under fire and pick up the slightly wounded Second Lieutenant Poundall and carry him in. Idiotic—but very brave. Poundall was far better on the ground than being carried shoulder high. I had been watching from a sap that ran forward out into No Man’s Land so I kept pace with Gates down it on the left flank of his company. I must have nearly reached the end of it when I decided to go back and report, there were so few up. I turned and out of the tail of my eye saw a heavy HE explode which blotted out everything where Bill was and I was sent flying. Dazed for a moment, I opened my eyes to stare into the eyes of a face on the same level as my own. I tried to move my legs and arms, they all worked well enough but the left arm was stiff and hurt. The face asked me if I was all right and an arm tried to drag me down into the Vickers gun emplacemen
t below ground which I hadn’t noticed as I passed going out. I told the face I mustn’t, I must go back and report. My friend the machine gunner gave me a drink of water. I thanked him, scrambled up and pushed off to report to Charles Rathbone. My cross belt fell off, a piece of case from the shell that killed Bill had sliced through to the bone of my left shoulder blade, a neat cut two inches long and that was the first time I knew I was hit.13
Second Lieutenant Sydney Stevenson-Jones, 2nd Battalion, South Lancashire Regiment, 75th Brigade, 25th Division
The attacking companies had been slaughtered by a lethal combination of enfilading machine guns and heavy shell fire. When Stevenson-Jones reported back to Captain Charles Rathbone he was immediately sent off to contact the neighbouring Border Regiment.
Followed only by my orderly, Golding, I set off down a long straight trench entirely empty till I came to a place where a young officer had mounted his Vickers gun on the top of the high parapet and was blazing away at something, his gun boiling with a tell-tale cloud of steam. On and on till I came to the end of the trench and there was still no Border Regiment. Just shell holes and fragments of trench now, but on we went, running and dodging from shell hole to shell hole, we seem to be fired at from all around, could we be in No Man’s Land now—or what? I stopped, looked around, but I was alone. I waited but Golding never came on, had he been hit? I must get back if I can, retrace my steps, find him, report to Charles Rathbone, there is no one here, and we couldn’t bring the company here if there was. A maze of shell holes, I tried to keep the general direction as best I could, but I never saw Golding again. A lad I was fond of—he would never have gone back without telling me, I heard afterwards he was killed. I came to the place where the young machine-gun officer had mounted his gun on the top of the too high parapet. The gun was askew, pointing skywards, still steaming, the young subaltern spread-eagled head downwards, shot through the centre of the forehead, his eyelids just fluttering. When I got to Charles a shell had just landed almost plumb on top of him. He was on the floor, very badly wounded, with his company sergeant major alongside him, and various others dead and wounded all around. So far as I knew, I was then the only officer left. I couldn’t go back to get my wound dressed.14