To the left of the wood the trench lines, which were not continuously connected up, curved in a south-westerly direction towards Bazentin-le-Petit, leaving the wood as the apex of an acute salient. In this section of the front the trenches seemed to fulfil no tactical requirements. There was no depth to the defensive system; the trenches were little more than knee-deep, and were choked with dead. Work on a single communication trench—High Alley, running from the Crucifix at Bazentin to High Wood—had been begun. The Germans held a strong redoubt in the eastern corner of High Wood. In this corner the contours were such that there was a depression in the ground similar in shape to a saucer. The Germans had fortified this saucer, and garrisoned it with machine-guns, mostly sited so as to fire to a flank. They could thus, by firing eastwards from this redoubt, rake No Man’s Land in direct enfilade. By firing westwards, they could place an enfilade barrage of low trajectory bullets which swept the rides through the wood. This redoubt was surmounted by wire entanglements, the tops of the pickets being just visible when looked at frontally and from our foremost saps.
Passing through the north-east corner of the wood was a strong switch line, which ran from Flers through High Wood towards Martinpuich. This was a well-dug, heavily-traversed trench protected by wire, but during this period had no completed dug-outs in it. Air photos, however, showed where work on the shafts of several dug-outs had been begun.
The whole of this area had been the scene of repeated encounters, as the ground amply testified. In the undergrowth of the wood, and in the standing corn which covered the whole area, lay the dead of many different regiments.
The result was that, owing to the scorching summer weather, the troops in the line lived in an atmosphere of pollution and in a positive torment of bluebottle flies. In one sap in particular, as one moved along it the flies rose in such clouds that their buzzing sounded as the noise of a threshing-machine. In this sap the sentries could only tolerate the conditions by standing with their handkerchiefs tied over their mouths and nostrils.
By 3 A.M. on 22nd July, the 154th Infantry Brigade had completed the relief of the 33rd Division. The 13th Brigade of the 5th Division were on their right, and the 57th Brigade of the 19th Division on their left.
Of the 154th Brigade two battalions held the line, the remaining two being in support and reserve in Bazentin-le-Grand Wood and Bazentin-le-Grand.
The Divisional artillery were in position in the open, the personnel for the most part living under tarpaulin shelters. Some batteries were in the Mametz Valley, while others were on the high ground south of Bazentin-le-Grand. It is difficult to determine who were most to be sympathised with—the gunners who lived alongside their guns, or the drivers who had to pass two or three times a day through the Happy Valley with ammunition. The batteries in positions in the valley itself probably lived in circumstances which could not have been more hazardous and unpleasant.
The 153rd Brigade in support occupied the area about the south-east corner of Mametz Wood and Caterpillar Wood. The 152nd Brigade in reserve bivouacked between Fricourt Wood and Mametz Wood.
At dawn on the 23rd the Happy Valley barrage, about which the Division had received no information, opened with great intensity. The 153rd and 152nd Brigades were seriously involved in it, and suffered considerable casualties. The 152nd Brigade was immediately fallen-in and marched westwards towards Fricourt, ultimately moving to bivouac in the vicinity of Becourt-Becordel. The 153rd Brigade extended its area so as to diminish the number of casualties.
It was later discovered that numerous shell-proof dug-outs existed in and about Mametz and Fricourt Woods. Apparently no organised reconnaissances of this area had been made, for had this been the case, and had the location of these dug-outs been made known to the Division on its arrival in the area, many unnecessary casualties would have been avoided.