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Born-Bradford

Enlisted-London

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.

11th Division arrived on the Somme at the beginning of September, 1916 where they joined the Reserve Army near Thiepval, which at that stage was still in German hands. On 26th September, 18th Division captured Thiepval and on the following day, 27th September,  the 9th West Yorkshire and 6th Yorkshire battalions of 32 Brigade attacked and captured Stuff Redoubt, a nearby formidable enemy stronghold. They hung on  here despite lack of bombs (grenades), continuous shelling of their positions and enemy counter attacks for three days until their position was reinforced and consolidated. The fierce fighting resulted in many casualties, one of whom was Charles Dawson who was killed in action on 27th September.