Current Information:

Age-21

160, J Block, Queen's Buildings, Scovell Road, Borough

Enlisted-Taunton

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

By the beginning of September, 1916,  the Battle of the Somme had been raging for two 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, 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.

One stumbling block for the British advance on the Somme was High Wood, lying half way between Delville Wood and the village of Martinpuich. As the name implies it was on a ridge slightly higher than the surrounding countryside so it was a good vantage point for whoever controlled it. At a considerable distance behind the German front line on 1st July, 1916, it was briefly occupied by British troops during their offensive on 14th July before the Germans took it back and strengthened its defences. For the next two months it was the scene of bitter fighting and the graveyard of thousands of men until it was finally captured in mid-September.

On 8th September, 1916, 1st Division attacked the western half of High Wood with 1st Gloucestershire and 2nd Welsh, both of 3 Brigade. On the left, 1st Gloucestershire attacked the south-west face of the wood and made progress despite their own artillery firing short as they advanced. On reaching their objective they found the enemy defending the position from shell holes which they had wired to make even more formidable. They withstood two German counter-attacks but German artillery had prevented any reinforcements from being sent up to them and without support their position was untenable. Shortly after midnight the survivors were withdrawn back to their starting lines. The battalion, already weak, sustained a further 200 casualties in this attack, one of them being Frederick Henderson.