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Born-Hackney

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.

24th Division had arrived on the Somme at the end of July, 1916 and had been involved in the attack on Guillemont on 18th August. After this they moved back to reserve lines in Happy Valley for a period of reorganisation and training but by the end of the month, 24th Division had moved back to the front line between Delville Wood and High Wood. This was a difficult relief because by now the weather had turned very wet and the deep, sticky Somme mud made progress extremely difficult. The Battle of Guillemont, which finally saw that village captured by the British,  began on 3rd September, 1916 and 8th East Kent (Buffs) of 17 Brigade, attacked the southern part of Wood Lane from their position in Worcester Trench. Their objective was an enemy strongpoint at the junction of Wood Lane and Tea Trench but fierce machine-gun fire as well as a feeble accompanying British barrage, kept them from achieving this. In support of this attack a company of 12th Royal Fusiliers bombed their way up Wood Lane and set up their Lewis Guns in Orchard Trench but despite this assistance the attack failed and the survivors ended up back at their starting line. 12th Royal Fusiliers sustained over fifty casualties during the fighting on this day, one of whom was Walter Payne.