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Born-St Pancras

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

By the beginning of August the Battle of the Somme had been raging for a full month. 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.

After a series of piecemeal, largely uncoordinated attacks against the German line in the first half of August, 1916, some lessons had been learned and the large operation carried out on 18th August at least had the merit of an attack on a broad front with a standard zero hour of 2.45pm. But in other respects, notably the artillery bombardment, tactics had not improved much. The Germans had by now adopted the tactic of placing their machine-guns in isolated shell holes which could only be destroyed by drenching the whole area with artillery but this did not happen and it was going to cost many British lives. The main focus of the attack was against the village of Guillemont but also stretched further along the line as far as High Wood. Despite some gains around Delville Wood and to the north and south of Guillemont, the attack was a failure. The main bastions of the German defence line were not breached.

24th Division attacked Guillemont on 18th August with mixed results. They started from the front line to the east of Trones Wood and advanced on a 1000 yard front. 17 Brigade attacked on the northern half of this front with 3rd Rifle Brigade and 8th East Kent (Buffs). 3rd Rifle Brigade advanced with great dash and captured not only the German front line but also Guillemont Station and some of the Waterlot Farm road, these being their second objectives. They had kept their communications with the rear open and this was just as well because at this stage it enabled them to avoid their own artillery barrage that targeted these second objectives. Nevertheless, 3rd Rifle Brigade did not escape without casualties. Over 200 of their number were either killed, wounded or missing. One of those who lost their lives was William Beatley.