Current Information:

Age-23

East Finchley

Born Marylebone

Serre Road Cemetery2, France

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

On 1st July 1916 The British Army launched a massive offensive along a section of the front line running north of the River Somme. The French attacked south of it. The first day was a disaster for the British army which suffered nearly 60,000 casualties, 19,000 of whom were killed, and made hardly any inroads into the enemy lines. But the battle had to go on, if for no other reason than to relieve pressure on the French at Verdun where they had been facing the full onslaught of the powerful German Army. 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 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.

20th Royal Fusiliers of 19 Brigade, 33rd Division arrived on the Somme on 10th July, 1916 and on 13th July were in billets in Buire-sur-l’Ancre, awaiting orders. The Battalion Diary makes no mention of casualties but Buire-sur-l’Ancre was well within range of some of the enemy artillery and this probably explains the death of Henry Brand who was killed on this day. The other possibility is that he could have been attached to another unit but there is no evidence of this.