Repeated attempts were made to cross a zone swept from end to end by bullets fired from the front and flank; but though part of “C” Company, 8th Gordon Highlanders, managed to reach the outskirts of the village, they could not maintain themselves there, the battalion being compelled to dig in on a line about 500 yards south of the village.
On the left the 6th Seaforth Highlanders advanced with the task of capturing the ground lying between the wood and the village, and of joining up with the 6th Gordon Highlanders north of the village.
This battalion, too, suffered heavily from enfilade fire from houses in the village which had escaped the tanks.
However, chiefly owing to the gallantry of individual officers and men, the enemy resistance was overcome. One officer, for instance, advancing ahead of his platoon against a machine-gun in a ditch alongside the Bapaume-Cambrai road, shot two of the team, and then carried back the gun under fire. A sergeant put a gun out of action by heading an attack along a trench occupied by a party of about thirty Germans, of which he bayoneted three himself, thus cowing the others into surrendering. A dash through the German barrage by an officer and one N.C.O. captured fifty Germans garrisoning a trench.
By means of these and similar exploits “C” Company, pushing in by section rushes, and closely supported by “D” Company, reached the north-east corner of Bourlon Wood. “D” Company from this point tried to gain the high ground north of the village, but the fire from Fontaine was so intense that their efforts had to be abandoned.
Meanwhile “A” and “B” Companies with the tanks were endeavouring to enter the west side of the village. They successfully cleared the outskirts, but every endeavour made to enter the main streets failed. Machine-gunners or riflemen seemed to be manning the windows of every house.
During this action the enemy made several attempts to defeat the whole attack by cutting in across the Bapaume-Cambrai road (south-west of the village), a form of counter-attack to which an attack from a salient is particularly liable. All his attempts in this direction collapsed under the fire of rifles and Lewis guns.
By the early afternoon the situation had become stationary, the surviving tanks all having returned from the village.
A fresh attack was therefore planned, as it would have been impossible for the 6th Seaforth Highlanders to maintain themselves in their advanced position unless some effort was made to relieve the pressure on their flanks. Two companies of the 5th Seaforth Highlanders were therefore ordered to advance through Anneux to the south-east corner of Bourlon Wood, now in the hands of the 40th Division, and forming up there, to attempt to clear Fontaine by bombing in conjunction with a fresh company of twelve tanks. At the same time, it was arranged that 100 rifles of the 6th Gordon Highlanders and two companies of the 8th Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders should form up on the right flank and co-operate in the attack.