Current Information:

Born-Leighton Buzzard

Enlisted-Shepherd's Bush

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.

126th Field Company of the Royal Engineers was part of 21st Division, which was heavily involved in the early stages of the Battle of the Somme. On 12th July, 1916, 62 Brigade from 21st Division relieved 38th Division who had been involved in some very fierce and costly fighting to capture Mametz Wood. Patrols were sent out and they found no signs of the enemy who had fallen back to their next line of defences. The whole of the wood was occupied and the northern edge of it was consolidated under a heavy German artillery bombardment. It is very likely that 126th Field Company was involved in this work and this would explain the deaths of a number of its men. One of these was Leonard Pantling.