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Born-Kensington

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

By the beginning of September, 1916,  the   of the Somme had been raging for two 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.

After a week out of the line, 20th Division returned to the Somme trenches when, on 26th September, 1916, when they relieved the 5th Division near the village of Morval. 59 Brigade were in reserve south of Guillemont and the 11th Rifle Brigade battalion were in a reserve trench fifty yards west of the Ginchy to Wedge Wood road. The enemy often seemed to know when an inter-battalion relief was taking place in the front line opposite them and then did as much as they could to disrupt it. This meant targeting the approach communication trenches with their artillery and keeping up a high level of machine-gun and rifle fire. Reliefs therefore were times of extra danger and many a soldier was killed or wounded during them. This was likely to have been the fate of Frank Engwell who was killed on 26th September.