Current Information:

Age-27

17, Whitehall Gardens, Acton

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

By the beginning of November, 1916, the Battle of the Somme had been raging for four 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, nearly all in the southern part of the battlefield, had been captured from the enemy. With November came the winter weather and this, combined with the sheer exhaustion of all involved, brought the battle to a close by the end of the month. Since the 1st July, 1916, British, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand and South African casualties numbered over 400,000, killed, wounded and missing. 

During November the focus of the fighting switched to the Ancre valley where the last major British offensive was launched on 13th of the month. Along the southern front fighting still continued but this was largely a series of localised attacks mainly designed to straighten out pockets and small salients in order to provide a more advantageous position for defence or attack in the future.

On 5th November an attack was delivered along most of this southern front by Fourth Army and the French on their right. Nearly everywhere this attack failed the only success being that of 100 Brigade, 33rd Division. The 16th King’s Royal Rifle Corps battalion played a leading part in this when two of their companies attacked east of Lesboeufs and captured Hazy Trench, where they remained, under fire, until the following night. There was a price to pay for this success however. The battalion suffered 150 casualties including Sydney Bannister who lost his life on 5th November.