Current Information:

Age-28

39, St Georges Court, Gloucester Road, South Kensington

Dartmoor Cemetery, Becordel-Becourt, France

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

On 1st July 1916 The British Army launched a massive offensive along a section of the front line running north of the River Somme while the French attacked south of it. The first day was a disaster for the British army which suffered nearly 60,000 casualties, 19,000 of whom were killed, and made hardly any inroads into the enemy lines. But the battle had to go on, if for no other reason than to relieve pressure on the French at Verdun where they had been facing the full onslaught of the powerful German Army. 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 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.

The days immediately following the carnage of July 1st on the Somme, had two main priorities. They were to rescue the wounded and to consolidate what gains had been made. However, despite the slaughter of 1st July, there was no going back. This was the “Big Push” and the attacks had to continue and Haig decided that they would continue on the southern sector of the front where the few successes had occurred. The first two weeks of the battle saw Fourth Army pushing forward towards the German second line from Contalmaison, through Mametz Wood to Trones Wood. The problem was that these attacks were uncoordinated, with divisions and  corps operating independently and without direction from Army HQ. In a series of isolated operations the British Army struggled forward and took territory but the price in human life was far higher than it should have been. 

The Royal Garrison Artillery operated larger and less mobile guns than the Field Artillery and the Siege Batteries operated the largest guns and howitzers. These were either mounted on concrete emplacements or on railway carriages and consequently they usually remained in the same sector of the line for long periods, coming under the orders of a Heavy Artillery Group.

Valentine Duke was killed on 10th July, 1916, while serving with the 26th Siege Battery of the Royal Garrison Artillery during the Battle of the Somme but the exact circumstances of his death are not known. Artillery men faced many dangers and during the course of the war nearly 50,000 of them were killed. Their gun batteries were targeted by the enemy’s guns which accounted for many of their casualties. Others were sent forward to act as ‘spotters’ which meant going forward to the front line and signalling back to the guns necessary changes in target and other vital information. Keeping the batteries supplied with ammunition was a dangerous task as the enemy guns would target the known supply routes, especially at night. Battery Diaries rarely shine any light on casualties sustained, unless of course they were officers and even then information is sparse.