Current Information:

Age-35

Born-Southsea

Enlisted-Lambeth

Blighty Valley Cemetery, Somme

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

By the beginning of September, 1916,  the Battle 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 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 village of Thiepval had been a first day objective when the Battle of the Somme began on 1st July, 1916, and two an a half months later it was still in German hands, That all changed on 26th September when an attack by the Reserve Army succeeded in wresting it  from the enemy. 18th Division used 53 and 54 Brigades for this operation The next day 18th Division continued their attack with their objective being the the formidable German stronghold, the Schwaben Redoubt, one thousand yards north of Thiepval. 53 and 54 Brigades met stubborn resistance here and only managed to capture its western and south-western faces and here the advance came to a stop but the fierce fighting continued. On 2nd October the 6th Royal Berkshire battalion of 53 Brigade were holding part of the line here when, at 7am, the enemy launched bombing (grenade) attacks against the junction of the Schwaben Redoubt and the battalion’s front line. In conjunction with the battalion on their left, the bomber’s of 6th Royal Berkshire drove the Germans back and regained that part of the line that had been captured. The battalion remained under heavy shell fire for the rest of the day and there were a number of casualties, one of whom was Frederick Woodhouse.