Current Information:

Age-25

Enlisted-Hackney

Delville Wood Cemetery, Longueval, Somme

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 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. When the battle drew to a close in November, 1916, British Army casualties numbered over 400,000, killed, wounded and missing.

The Battle of Morval

This took place from September 25-28, 1916, when the British attacked German defenders entrenched around the villages of Morval and Lesbouefs east of Flers These were positions the enemy had withdrawn to after British gains during the Battle of Flers-Courcelette from September 15-22 and they had  not had time to construct deep dugouts nor adequately strengthen the trenches they now found themselves defending. A British artillery barrage which commenced on 24th September, cleared the way for an advance by British infantry and tanks beginning at 12:35 pm on September 25 Aided by a creeping artillery barrage the divisions of XIV Corps surged forwards and despite heavy machine gun fire soon captured Morval and Lesbouefs.

On 25th September, 1916, the 13th London battalion were in reserve and were not involved when 168 Brigade of 56th (London) Division, attacked just to the north of the village of Combles on the right of the British line. They were however employed as carrying parties, bringing forward supplies to those battalions of the brigade that had carried out the successful attack. On the following day, 26th September, 13th London moved forward and relieved 4th London and 14th London in the positions they had captured on the previous day in Bouleaux Wood and trenches to the north-east of it.. Here they had to  run the gauntlet of sustained and heavy enemy shell fire which resulted in a number of casualties for the battalion, one of whom was Albert Clarke.