Current Information:

Age-25

2, Milford House, Council Estate, East Hill, Wandsworth

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.

2nd Royal West Surrey (Queens) of 91 Brigade, 7th Division had been involved on the Somme in early July, 1916 but by the end of the month they were withdrawn and did not return to the front line until 31st August when they moved into Delville Wood. A great deal of fighting had already taken place here, turning the wood into a hopeless tangle of undergrowth, fallen trees, remains of trenches and dead bodies. On 1st September, 1916, two platoons of ‘C’ Company made a bombing (grenade) attack along the eastern edge of the wood towards Hop Alley but their progress was halted by heavy machine-gun and rifle fire. The trench here had been largely obliterated by continuous shell fire, so there was little cover and no real trench along which to bomb. Whilst this was going on the enemy artillery was busy all day, at times laying down three barrages between the front line and the Battalion HQ. 2nd Queens sustained over 100 casualties during the day, one of whom was Charles Bradford.