Current Information:

Born-Bloomsbury

Grove Town Cemetery, Meaulte, 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.

On 19th October, 1916, the 2nd Rifle Brigade battalion of 25 Brigade, 8th Division, moved into the trenches near Lesboeufs where Rainbow Trench formed the front line. On 22nd October the artillery of both sides was busy which resulted in some casualties among the ranks of 2nd Rifle Brigade, a list that increased that evening when the battalion moved into assembly trenches in preparation for an attack the following day. Zero hour for this was at 2.30pm on 23rd October when they advanced close behind a creeping artillery barrage. They made good progress and established posts along New Trench despite the heavy machine-gun fire that confronted them especially that coming from a strongpoint at the junction of Zenith and Eclipse Trenches on their right which they failed to capture.. The battalion remained in these forward positions, under constant fire until relieved at 11pm on 24th October. The attack had been largely unsuccessful and 2nd Rifle Brigade suffered over 250 casualties including Alfred Allison who died from wounds on 25th October.