Current Information:

SDGW-FLEMMING

Born-Marylebone

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 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.

24th Division had arrived on the Somme at the end of July, 1916 and had been involved in the attack on Guillemont on 18th August when 3rd Rifle Brigade of 17 Brigade sustained heavy casualties. After this they moved back to reserve lines in Happy Valley for a period of reorganisation and training. By the end of the month 24th Division had moved back to the front line near Delville Wood. This was a difficult relief because by now the weather had turned very wet and the deep, sticky Somme mud made progress extremely difficult. 3rd Rifle Brigade were in reserve at Montauban on  31st August, when the enemy launched an attack against these positions which pushed back the battalions of  73 Brigade  and resulted in the loss of Orchard Trench and Tea Trench. The following day, 1st September, 1916, 3rd Rifle Brigade were ordered to recapture these two trenches. ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘D’ Companies moved forward over unfamiliar ground lacking any communication trenches so their advance was made in the open. Surprisingly they were not fired on at this stage and when they reached their jumping off trench at 6pm, they moved straight to the attack. Now the firing started and although they recaptured Orchard Trench they lost 50% of their number in doing so and this meant that an attack on Tea Trench was no longer possible. However, they did manage to secure Wood Lane as far as the German barricade at its junction with Tea Trench. 3rd Rifle Brigade sustained over 200 casualties in this operation, one of whom was Thomas Fleming.