Current Information:

Age-22

Born-Glasgow

Enlisted-Holloway

Pozieres British Cemetery, Ovillers-La Boisselle, France

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

By the beginning of August the Battle of the Somme had been raging for a full month. 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.

On 14th July, 1916, a second major offensive had been launched and the German second line of defences stretching from Longueval to Bazentin-le-Petit were largely captured. The next move was to capture the continuation of this defence line which ran across Pozières Ridge and on to Thiepval. This task was handed to the Australians who had recently arrived on the Somme and in a series of epic battles between 23rd July, 1916 and 4th August, 1916 the village of Pozières and the ridge beyond it was taken.

12th Division played a part in this operation when on 28th July they moved up to the Tara-Usna line in front of La Boisselle in preparation for an attack on that part of the Pozières Ridge north-west of the village of Pozières . This began at 11.15pm on 3rd August when 8th Royal Fusiliers of 36 Brigade, charged forward behind an artillery barrage and captured the south-west portion of a German Trench, Fourth Avenue. At the same time 6th East Kent (Buffs), with their left covered by a smoke screen, took a strong point at the lower end of Fourth Avenue. Bombers of both battalions were then able to gain a foothold in Ration Trench where they captured nearly 100 Germans. 36 Brigade continued with this action on 4th August, 1916 when, at 9.15pm and in conjunction with an attack by the Australians, they tried to complete the capture of Ration Trench. 7th Sussex and 9th Royal Fusiliers attacked it frontally while 8th Royal Fusiliers bombed up from the left. Much of Ration Trench was cleared of the enemy but not as far as the junction with Western Trench which had been one of their objectives. There were of course the inevitable casualties, one of whom was Thomas Dewar of 9th Royal Fusiliers.