Current Information:

Age-23

121, Greyhound Road, Tottenham

Carnoy Military Cemetery, France

The opening day of the Battle of the Somme 1st July 1916

This was a disastrous day for the British Army in France. Eleven divisions of Fourth Army attacked along a fifteen mile front from Maricourt to Serre. Two further divisions of Third Army launched a diversionary attack just to the north of Serre at Gommecourt. For a week beforehand the British artillery pounded the German trenches but the Germans had been there for a long time and they had constructed deep, concrete reinforced shelters beneath their trenches and many survived the bombardment. The troops went over the top at 7.30 am but even before they had left their overcrowded trenches, many had been killed or maimed by German artillery. The Germans knew that they were coming. Once in No-Man’s-Land the artillery continued to take its toll and then the machine guns opened up on the advancing British infantry. They fell in their thousands and the attack came to a standstill almost everywhere. Survivors sought cover wherever they could find it and at night they crawled back to their own lines, often dragging a wounded soldier with them. Only in the south were any advances made with the attack on Fricourt and Mametz. Over 19,000 British soldiers were killed on this day, including 2,500 from London.

The 6th Northamptonshire battalion of 54 Brigade, 18th Division took part in one of the few successful attacks in the southern part of the front towards the village of Mametz. 11th Royal Fusiliers and 7th Bedfordshire led the attack up the southern face of the Mametz spur between the two mine craters that had been blown minutes before zero hour and made rapid progress up to Pommiers Trench. This was captured by 8pm and they then moved on to take the German stronghold, Pommiers Redoubt. At 8.30pm they were reinforced by the support battalion, 6th Northamptonshire, and pushed on to Beetle Alley which, by 10am, was in their hands. At this stage strong German resistance prevented any further advance along Beetle Trench or Montauban Alley. At some stage of the day Arthur Cottam was killed.