Current Information:

Born-Ealing

Carnoy Military Cemetery, Somme

The Battle of the Somme (July-November, 1916)

By the beginning of October, 1916,  the Battle of the Somme had been raging for three months. Thousands of men had already been killed or wounded or were simply missing, never to be seen again and and just a few square miles of the French countryside, nearly all in the southern part of the battlefield, had been captured from the enemy. Mistakes had been made by the various commanders and would be continued to be made but there was no turning back as the British, Australians, South Africans, New Zealanders and Canadians carried on battering away at the German defences in the hope of a breakthrough, So it continued all the way through to November with nearly every battalion and division then in France being drawn into it at some stage. In the end the German trenches had been pushed back a few more miles along most of the line but the cost in lives had been staggering. By the end of the fighting in November, 1916, British Army casualties numbered over 400,000, killed, wounded and missing.

2nd Royal Fusiliers of 86 Brigade, 29th Division had been involved in the initial fighting of the Battle of the Somme in July, 1916 but at the end of that month the division was moved north to Ypres in Belgium not returning to the Somme until the middle of October, 1916. The focus of the fighting on the southern part of the battlefield during October had been the struggle to gain a foothold on the Transloy Ridge which had pushed the front a little further forward but this was practically over by the time that 2nd Royal Fusiliers arrived in the sector. On 22nd October they were in reserve trenches in front of Delville Wood where their main preoccupation was keeping dry. But they were close enough to the front line to have to contend with regular periods of shelling by the enemy and there was a steadily mounting casualty list. On 27th October they moved to Bernafay Wood and either in transit or while there they sustained a number of casualties as the shelling continued. One of those who died on this day was George Gant.