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Born-Acton

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

By the beginning of October, 1916,  the Battle of the Somme had been raging for three 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.

The Battle of Transloy Ridge

On 1st October, 1916, a new offensive was begun by the British Army. The Battle of Transloy Ridge was the last major operation fought during the battle of the Somme and it continued throughout the first three weeks of the month until the terrible conditions of rain, mud and cold coupled with the sheer exhaustion of the troops, brought things to a standstill. The aim had been to push the enemy further back to the next ridge of higher ground running between Le Transloy and Warlencourt. It was a very hard fight, progress was painfully slow, the casualty figure was shockingly high and the final objective was not achieved despite the best efforts of the attacking divisions. Three factors worked against its success. The first was the weather. It was simply awful. The second was the miles of war torn terrain which soon became a quagmire over which troops, guns, ammunition and all the other supplies had to cross to reach the front and keep the momentum of the offensive going. For the Germans, falling back on their own supply lines across relatively unscathed ground, this was not such a problem. The third factor was the new methods of defence employed by the enemy. They defended in depth without a well defined front line but instead setting up machine-gun nests in shell holes and other strategically important sites where just a few men could hold up an entire battalion. And of course, the German artillery had the whole area covered.

On 3rd October, 1916, the 32nd Royal Fusiliers battalion of 124 Brigade left Edgehill Station Camp, where they had spent the last week and moved forward to support trenches near Pommiers Redoubt. On the following day, 41st Division relieved the New Zealanders in the front line just to the north of the village of Flers and on 5th October, 32nd Royal Fusiliers relieved 11th Queens in front line, taking up positions in Gird support and advanced trenches with Battalion HQ at Factory Corner. The battalion was heavily shelled throughout 6th October and spent that night digging a new trench in preparation for their attack the following day. On 7th October 32nd Royal Fusiliers and 26th Royal Fusiliers attacked Bayonet Trench but were checked by machine-gun fire when half way to their objective. Those who survived managed to establish themselves in a forward position where they were reinforced at night by 21st King’s Royal Rifle Corps and 10th Queens, the other two battalions of 124 Brigade. For the next two days they remained here doing their best to consolidate while under persistent shell fire and attacks by enemy aircraft. On the evening of 10th October they were relieved and moved back to a camp in Mametz Wood. Their casualties for this operation amounted to nearly two hundred and fifty and included James Brent who was killed in action on 7th October.