It was arranged that sufficient infantry bombing parties should be detailed from the bombers of the Division to carry out various tasks, according to the progress made by the assaulting infantry.
In these days the bomb commonly used was the Bethune bomb. These were made of cast-iron, and were exploded by means of time-fuses fixed into detonators, with patent lighters attached to the fuse. They were but clumsy and dangerous weapons when compared with the modern Mills bomb.
Bombing and its tactics was then an art which could only be acquired by a course of specialist training, which, with the facilities that then existed, lasted a considerable time.
The result was that the output of bombers was small, and it was therefore considered necessary, if full value was to be obtained from them, to amalgamate all the bombers of each brigade into brigade grenadier companies.
On this occasion all three brigade grenadier companies detailed bombing squads to take part in the operations.
The artillery available for this attack was, both as regards the number of guns and the amount of ammunition, insignificant in the light of more recent experience. The Divisional artillery, it is true, had been reinforced by a group of French 75’s. The 15-pounders, with which the Divisional artillery was armed, had, however, such faulty ammunition and so little of it that effective co-operation with the infantry was, according to modern standards, out of the question. The artillery programme included wire-cutting, a two days’ continuous bombardment, and a final intensive bombardment. The first bombardment was to continue up to the moment of the infantry assault. At 6 P.M., the hour of the assault, the guns firing on the enemy’s front line were to lift on to the line L9-L10. At 6.15 P.M. there was a further lift on to the Rue d’Orient.
The general plan can be summed up as being an attempt to straighten out a re-entrant in our line by pinching off a salient in the enemy’s.
The artillery began wire-cutting on 13th June, the deliberate bombardment beginning on the 14th. On the 15th it continued, becoming intensive between 5.30 P.M. and 6 P.M. Mountain-guns and trench-mortars also joined in the bombardment.
At 6 P.M., 15th June, the attack was launched by the 4th Loyal North Lancashires and the 6th Scottish Rifles[3] of the 154th Brigade.