The day on which the relief was concluded, 22nd July, the Division received orders to carry out an attack during the coming night. The objectives given were the north-east and north-west edges of High Wood and the switch trench from the north-east of High Wood to a point five hundred yards north-west of it.
The 154th Brigade was detailed to carry out this operation. As a preliminary the redoubt at the eastern corner of High Wood was to be seized at 10 P.M. in conjunction with the left brigade, 5th Division. The main attack on the German switch line was timed to take place at 1.30 P.M.
The troops engaged in this attack had little or no knowledge of the enemy’s dispositions. They had barely completed the relief by dawn on the previous night. During the day movement was restricted and patrolling impossible. Thus when the attack was launched at 10 P.M., circumstances had afforded the attackers no opportunity of studying the ground, or of forming any detailed plan of action. Added to this the wood was such that the trees prevented a shrapnel barrage from being effective. Further, the “going” within the wood, owing to shell-holes, brambles, dense undergrowth, and wire entanglements, was extremely bad—so bad, in fact, that even many weeks after its capture, to walk from one end of the wood to the other was a laborious process demanding considerable physical effort.
The attack was therefore delivered with an ineffective barrage with which the men were unable to keep up. The result was that the enemy had little inducement to take cover. He was thus able with his machine-guns and riflemen, whom he posted at night in the woods in advance of his trench lines, to defeat the attack completely and inflict heavy losses on the 4th Gordon Highlanders, and the 9th Royal Scots.
At 1.30 A.M. the main attack was delivered, but it met with no better fate. The volume of fire, particularly from the machine-guns in the redoubt, was so intense that no progress could be made. The men had advanced to the attack with great gallantry, but the cross-fire opposed to them rendered success impossible. Morning found them back in their original line, but seriously depleted in numbers.
The day was spent in improving the trenches and in connecting by a trench the southern edge of High Wood with the Windmill north of Bazentin-le-Grand. Both the troops in the line and the brigade in support were heavily shelled during the day, lachrymatory shells and 5·9 howitzers being used profusely.
During the night work was continued on the trench joining High Wood and the Windmill, and in High Alley. By the end of the night the latter was negotiable for traffic to within sixty yards of the wood. The following day the former of these two trenches was heavily and accurately bombarded.
At 7.30 P.M., 24th July, the enemy launched a surprise attack against High Wood and against the left company of the 154th Brigade. For some time the situation was obscure, but by 10 P.M. the artillery had been asked to slacken. It subsequently transpired that our line remained intact, and that the German attackers were falling back.
During the attack the enemy again barraged the new trench mentioned above extremely heavily. He also bombarded High Wood and set it on fire.