by Peter Hart
I saw Mills bombs going through the air and the German bombs going back. It was obvious that our men had got in somewhere on the left and were bombing the Germans out. When they got opposite to us the Germans left the trench and ran back, they were gone in seconds before we could drive at them.29
Corporal Arthur Razzell, 8th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, 36th Brigade, 12th Division
Colonel Osborn of the 7th Royal Sussex had moved forward with his Headquarters Company and temporarily took shelter in two huge shell holes in No Man’s Land. He was determined not to give up and rallied his men for another attack.
We reorganised for a further rush into the German front line. Before we got off Lieutenant Gordon, the bombing officer, was killed, and Lieutenant Wilton, the signals officer, wounded; also three of the men were killed. In the German lines things were a little chaotic. Some shots were being exchanged and bombs thrown on the flank and into dugouts. A few German snipers had stuck to their posts. I shot one and frightened off another with a rifle I picked up from a casualty. Our own liaison aeroplane then came over to look us up and flew most gallantly right into a barrage of shrapnel. We tried to signal him, but I don’t think he saw us. Our flares were ready, but we had not time to light them before he was gone. When there is hand-to-hand fighting it is impossible to light flares at a fixed hour.30
Lieutenant Colonel W. L. Osborn, 7th Battalion, Royal Sussex Regiment, 36th Brigade, 12th Division
Trying to communicate their progress was difficult especially as most of the regimental signalling team had been badly wounded earlier in the attack and had to be left lying in No Man’s Land. Despite his wounds the signal officer, Captain Wilton, desperately tried to signal their progress to the contact patrols of the RFC skimming above the battlefield.
Corporal Chevis was badly wounded as he was getting into the shell hole. At the time he was carrying one of the two large signalling shutters on a pole. This was smashed by the piece of shell which went through his thigh, while shortly afterwards he was wounded again in the same leg, and died the following morning. No words could express his bravery during the pain he suffered. I took one of the signalling shutters on my knees, and as our contact aeroplane came over I kept sending our battalion call-sign—which I think was seen, because the plane came down quite low, and the observer waved what looked like a muffler before flying away.31
Captain John Wilton, 7th Battalion, Royal Sussex Regiment, 36th Brigade, 12th Division
The men of the 7th Royal Sussex who had breached the German front line were equally aware of the importance of consolidating their tenuous grip on success. Time was a precious commodity, never regained once squandered. Almost invariably the Germans would be on them before they were ready.
While going round the lines organising the defences I went into a German dugout occupied by some nine or ten Guard Fusiliers who had surrendered to our men and the 9th Royal Fusiliers. I was questioning them about water-supply and bombs, when the Germans rushed the trench above from a flank.32
Lieutenant Colonel W. L. Osborn, 7th Battalion, Royal Sussex Regiment, 36th Brigade, 12th Division
Colonel Osborn found himself trapped in the dugout with the Germans swarming all over the trench above him and directly controlling the only exit.
I started five men making a block on our left and told them to hold on there. While I was busy on our right the enemy attacked on our left, captured our block, killing the men I had left, and occupying the trench where the battalion headquarters dugout, with Colonel Osborn inside it, was situated. German stick bombs were going off all over the place and things were a bit windy for a moment, but directly the men knew the colonel was ‘in the ditch’ they wanted no leading. We just went for the Germans and they could not withstand the combination of Mills bombs and the 7th Battalion bereft of their commanding officer. When we had cleared them well back and made good the line again, I hared to the top of the steps of the dugout where the colonel was; there was someone lying dead at the bottom, and I thought for a moment it was the colonel and shouted, ‘They have got the CO!’ He heard me and, sticking his head round the corner, said, ‘Oh no they haven’t!’ I then went into the dugout myself and the CO tied up my head. I did not take any further part in the show, as I found I was full of little bits of bomb.33
Captain Henry Sadler, 7th Battalion, Royal Sussex Regiment, 36th Brigade, 12th Division
Colonel Osborn had spent the intervening minutes somewhat anxiously watching the different coloured legs rushing past the dugout entrance.
In the end the operation could be considered a success. Eventually the first two German lines were overrun and during the night a link was established with the far less successful 74th Brigade. The question of the brutal trade-off between gains made and casualties suffered soon began to surface both at the front and behind at divisional headquarters.
We have held on to what we have gained this morning but it has been slow and not without loss. The people on our right did not get on far enough to join up so we have got to do it ourselves. This and machine guns have delayed things a bit. Very little news of any sort today. The rain has been vile, converting everything again into quagmires and emergency roads into bogs. It really has been a cruel fate. Men are all wet through and no shelter. The conditions the last three days could hardly have been worse—it seems always to be like that when we attack. But still we have done a good bit and the brigade attacked most gallantly and the men are pleased with themselves.34
Quartermaster General Lieutenant Colonel E. H. E. Collen, Headquarters, 12th Division
The men of the 7th Royal Sussex may have been pleased with themselves but the majority of the 74th Brigade had suffered nothing but pain and death. They had a very different perspective of the days fighting.
When we got back to the transport I saw our regimental sergeant major standing on the road. As soon as he saw me, ‘Fall out the 8th Battalion!’ I went to him and I said, ‘I’m the only one left!’ ‘You can’t be, you can’t be!’ he said. They came down in ones and twos. When there were no more coming down we moved back to Albert. Next day we moved back to some woods in huts and we had a roll call. Apparently the colonel was killed, the adjutant was killed, all four company captains were killed, no officers came back, they were either killed or wounded; there was one NCO, that was myself; a corporal, one lance corporal and sixty-three privates.35
Corporal Arthur Razzell, 8th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, 36th Brigade, 12th Division
As his skeleton battalion moved back out of the line it was just a husk of the unit that had marched forward only a few days before. But Corporal Arthur Razzell had not yet seen the last of his former companions—or of Ovillers.
A couple of days after we came out, I was sent back with five or six men to collect the pay books of our men. The Germans had been pushed over the ridge so that we could go up in daylight. They were all our own men, some were from the attack that had happened on the 1st July. We had to turn them over to get to their breast pockets where they always kept their pay book, collected them in sandbags. Of course we were face to face with the absolute horror of war, men decapitated, empty brain cavities, entrails where they’d been disembowelled—horrible really. There was a corpse every odd yard, halfway up the 700 yards, very few got past that because they were being mowed down by machine-gun fire. In fact that day at Ovillers is absolutely engraved on my brain. I’ve thought about it all my life.36
Corporal Arthur Razzell, 8th Battalion, Royal Fusilers, 36th Brigade, 12th Division
As part of the same uncoordinated series of attacks launched on 7 July, the 17th and 23rd Divisions launched an entirely unsequenced series of clumsy thrusts directed against Contalmaison and the neighbouring German strong points. A day of desperate attacks and counterattacks followed as both sides fought over the ruins. In the afternoon the reserves began to move forward to push on the attack and consolidate the gains made.
We saw a fine sight on our right; the second and
successful attack on Contalmaison. It was thrilling to see the lines of infantry advancing in extended order despite the shrapnel bursting all around them. They disappeared into the trees and presently we heard the attack had been very successful.37
Sergeant Roland Mountfield, 10th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, 111th Brigade, 37th Division
At 2100 that night they were pushed forward in support of the attack made by the 13th Rifle Brigade toward Pozières. The situation was confused and so were the men.
The Rifle Brigade were holding our front line and we were under the impression we were to relieve them. The way up was over ground for a little way, then along some trenches and then up a light railway line for nearly half a mile, from which the trenches turned off to the left and right. We moved off in the evening without knowing definitely what we were going to do and with many maddening halts and crawls got up near the tram line. Suddenly we saw that in front they were starting to run. Our captain stood at the corner where we came out on to the line yelling, ‘Buck up, they’ve gone over!’ and off we went at the double. What was meant to happen I don’t know now. What did happen is that the Rifle Brigade went over the top to the German trenches opposite them; then we came running up the line past the trenches the Rifle Brigade had vacated and on towards the German line. The attack ought never to have been made and an order was sent up cancelling it. But the Rifle Brigade were already in the German trenches and we were nearly there. We came on, not knowing where we were, where we were going, or what we were going to do when we got there. The Germans, of course, had got the tram line taped. Shrapnel was flying all over the place and a machine gun on the left caught us. We seemed to go on for a year. Men were going down every minute, and since there had previously been bodies lying all the way, the place began to look a bit rotten. Here and there the lines had been torn up by shells and the holes had filled up with water, so that often we were nearly knee deep and one or two I saw struggling up to their waists. Then just as I became sure that there was nobody leading us and we should just go on running till there was no one left, there was a check in front and the order came down to retire. The advance had been steady enough, but I am afraid that the retirement was a bit of a scramble.38
Sergeant Roland Mountfield, 10th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, 111th Brigade, 37th Division
They fell back to the original front-line positions to the left and right of the tram line.
Our orders were to spread out and man the parapet, which we did. The trenches were being heavily shelled, we didn’t know what was happening and consequently when we saw men advancing towards us fire was opened for a few moments until we saw that some were English. They proved to be the Rifle Brigade bringing back wounded and prisoners. Of the latter over 200 came or were brought in and some of them are supposed to have said that if we hadn’t fired there was a whole battalion ready to come over and surrender. We were shelled all night, but the rottenest part was the unsettled state of things. The Rifle Brigade had now received the order to retire and they came back from the German trenches. We heard the Germans return to it presently, chucking plenty of bombs about by way of precaution.39
Sergeant Roland Mountfield, 10th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, 111th Brigade, 37th Division
Sergeant Mountfield was then ordered to carry rations forward along a communication trench that linked the front line with a party clinging on to an isolated outpost. It was a journey he could only try to forget; but the horror of it was surely imprinted on his mind for the rest of his life.
I wonder what the people at home who say, ‘We will fight to our last drop of blood!’ would think if they were taken up that trench. For 500 yards it is paved with English dead. I don’t know what happened, but they were evidently caught there by awful shell fire—some say our own. In places you must walk on them, for they lie in heaps. I went up with rations and again to help carry down a casualty on a stretcher. I won’t describe that trench until I have forgotten it a little. We slept in our little excavations at the side of the trench. The man in the one next to mine tried to deepen his a little and struck sacking. Suspecting nothing he went on and got as far as a blood stained cap and then he went to dig a new hole. I had already found sacking in mine but providentially had stopped there, so didn’t trouble to move. What the eye doesn’t see....40
Sergeant Roland Mountfield, 10th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, 111th Brigade, 37th Division
There seemed to be little point to their horrific experiences and the terrible blood sacrifice they had made. Even the normally neutral regimental history commented that: ‘The men preferred attack when losses sustained went to pay the price of some tangible success, or at least to further an obvious purpose.’41
Meanwhile, on this day of futile sacrifice, another tragedy loomed just to the right of the struggling 37th Division, where the 38th (Welsh) Division had been ordered to attack the brooding menace that was Mametz Wood. It was to be the first of a series that would indelibly mark out a link between the pride of Wales and this hitherto obscure little French wood. The 16th Welch and the 11th South Wales Borderers of the 115th Brigade were to be the first over the top at 0830 that morning.
Rations for the day were issued. For fifty-two of us I was allocated one and a half loaves of bread, a piece of boiled bacon weighing about 16 ounces after the Somme mud had been removed, a small quantity of biscuits, some currants and sultanas and a petrol tin of tea. As I displayed the rations which would not be the ‘last supper’ but the ‘last breakfast’ for some of us, I reminded my lads of the parable of the ‘loaves and fishes’, adding that as I had not the miraculous powers of Our Lord Jesus Christ, section commanders should toss up—the winner taking the lot. At this, one of the lads said, ‘Say Sarge, the buggers do not intend us to die on a full stomach, do they?’42
Sergeant Albert Perriman, 11th South Wales Borderers, 115th Brigade, 38th Division
Primed with such examples of gallows humour the men awaited the signal to attack.
We were crouched down, I had all these magazines round me, Jack had the machine gun and we crouched down behind a ridge overlooking the wood. We had our eyes on the officer, Lieutenant Eddie Williams. He had a whistle in his mouth and he was looking at his wristwatch. Then a blast on the whistle and a wave of his hand and we were up and over. It was just like a referee starting a football match.43
Private Victor Lansdown, 16th Battalion, Welch Regiment, 115th Brigade, 38th Division
The attack was launched from Happy Valley towards the fringe of Mametz Wood. This was a considerable expanse of ground that they would have to cross. They could only hope that the guns had forced the Germans back. At first the prognosis seemed good.
Our artillery barrage was raised to form a cover for our forward push, it also anticipated that the time had arrived for us to go ‘over the top’. The battalion leading advanced slowly in waves of platoons, No. 1 Platoon of A Company leading. There was something of a distance of 10 yards between each platoon. The advance was made in stages, moves made alternatively to a point where a mass attack on enemy positions could be launched. The ground we were covering was undulating and afforded plenty of cover, but when the apex was reached some 150 yards from the fringe of the wood, the ground fell away, leaving us completely exposed to German fire. The lack of enemy fire made the situation somewhat unrealistic, and gave the impression they had retired further than we expected. The battalion was now ready to make its final attack, with A Company some 50 yards from the wood. The trouble started when the next move was made. Without warning, not that we expected any, the whole front we were holding was subjected to murderous machine-gun fire. What had happened was the Germans had provided a rear-guard protection with three machine guns dug deeply into the ground. Our advance was watched by means of periscopes and fire was held until we provided an ideal target. Casualties were thick and heavy and our advance halted. There was nothing for it but to lie prone and hoping for the best as thousands of bullets whizzed over our heads. Slight ra
in did not add to our comfort.44
Sergeant Albert Perriman, 11th South Wales Borderers, 115th Brigade, 38th Division
The other assaulting troops of the 16th Welch Regiment had also been cut to ribbons by heavy machine-gun fire. The attack broke down before the men had the chance to reach the fringes of the wood.
The bullets were whistling past our ears, this man was holding up his hand. He had his rifle in it but only the finger and thumb was holding it because three fingers had been shot off. He said, ‘Look what the bastards have done!’ I said, ‘Lie down, make yourself as small as possible!’ We kept going, Jack and I, till the officer gave the signal to get down. We spotted a shell hole which we dived into head first. The tops of our bodies in the shell hole and our legs stuck up in the air. Jack fixed up the gun, fired a blast into the wood and that brought the revenge. A hail of bullets and I passed out—I was unconscious. It wasn’t till later that we came to the conclusion that a bullet had hit my steel helmet and stunned me! At the same time a bullet had gone through my leg, so Jerry had given me an anaesthetic and I never felt any of it! But poor old Jack had a bullet through both legs and he felt both of them. When I came to my senses, Jack asked if I could get at my water bottle, so I turned over on my back, we were face down before. I handed him my water bottle. And then I could see my leg. The bullet had ripped my puttee and the two ends were hanging down soaked in blood. There was nothing much I could do about it. I’d lost so much blood I was too weak to do anything.45
