Current Information:

Age-43

Military Medal

129, Burlington Road, Thornton Heath

Born-Tooting

Enlisted-Kingston

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 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.

24th Division arrived on the Somme during the last week of July, 1916 and during the second half of August had been engaged in some fierce fighting around the village of Guillemont.  At the end of the month 9th East Surrey of 72 Brigade were in reserve trenches near Montauban and the next day, 1st September, 1916, they were ordered up to front line trenches to the east and north-west of Delville Wood in preparation for an attack two days later. On 3rd September, 7th Division attacked the village of Ginchy and on their left, in order to assist,  9th East Surrey attacked Ale Trench. They nearly succeeded but the troops on their right were held up by machine-gun fire and this in turn exposed the flank of 9th East Surrey. Their own artillery barrage did not help much with some of it falling among the men as they advanced, rather than on Ale Alley. Eventually those who could were compelled to fall back to their start line. There were numerous casualties for the battalion, one of whom was Walter White.