Current Information:

SDGW-FRASER

Born-Shoreditch

Quarry Cemetery, Montauban, 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 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.

At the end of July, 1916, 24th Division moved from Flanders to the Somme and on 11th August the 2nd Leinster battalion of 73 Brigade moved into reserve trenches at Carnoy. On the following day, 12th August, the battalion suffered nineteen casualties while digging trenches between Bernafay and Trones Woods. One of those killed was John Frazer.