Current Information:

CWGC-J G HIGGINS

Born-Kilburn

Contay British Cemetery, Contay, France

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, 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.

The 105th Field Company of the Royal Engineers was part of 25th Division which at the beginning of October, 1916, was holding a sector of line immediately south of the River Ancre. After a series of small scale raids and operations, a major attack was made by the Division on 9th October but as yet there is no information concerning the death of Claude Higgins who died from wounds on 2nd October, 1916.