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Enlisted-Holloway

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 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.

11th Division arrived on the Somme at the beginning of September, 1916 where they joined the Reserve Army near Thiepval, which at that stage was still in German hands. In front of them was the heavily defended Leipzig Salient which contained the Wundt Werk (Wonder Work), a formidable enemy strongpoint. On 14th September, the 9th West Yorkshire battalion of 32 Brigade moved into the front line here and that evening, along with the 8th West Riding battalion, they attacked. Advancing from the Hindenburg Trench behind an excellent artillery barrage, that destroyed much of the enemy’s defences, they captured both the German front line and the Wundt Werk. That night they consolidated their gains and on the following night they were relieved and moved back to dug-outs at Crucifix Corner. Although this was a successful operation, there were over three hundred casualties for 9th West Yorkshire one of whom was James Wood who was killed in action on 14th September.