The Division had passed from sixteen days of continuous and unsatisfactory strife to an unexpected haven of rest, set in the midst of corn-lands during harvest-time.
It was a real refreshment for the men to sit in the cool of a delightful summer evening and listen to “Stanley” and “Gertie,” both of whom rose to the occasion admirably.
So ended the first offensive operations in which the Division had been employed as a whole unit. The results had been disappointing and dispiriting to all. Over 3500 casualties, including more than 150 officers, had been sustained in two fruitless attempts to carry a German position which remained intact, in spite of many attacks by a succession of Divisions, until 15th September. The Germans had shown that High Wood could not be taken hurriedly by a direct frontal attack.
Three months later General Harper was able to show that the much stronger position of Beaumont Hamel could be stormed frontally after careful preparations and with adequate artillery support.
High Wood was finally overcome by a mine, which shattered the redoubt, and by tanks, which on this occasion were employed for the first time in the Great War.
The mine referred to above was suggested by General Pelham Burn on the morning of 5th August as being the least costly means of subduing the redoubt. His suggestion was at once adopted. Tunnelling officers reported at brigade headquarters the same evening, the actual mining operations beginning on the following morning.
It was most satisfactory to those engaged in High Wood to visit it after the German withdrawal in the Somme area, and see in place of the saucer in which the German redoubt was situated a vast crater. Many graves were in it and round it, and arms, equipment, and ammunition lay scattered about it. In fact, it had all the appearance of having admirably served its purpose.
On the 9th August the Division, less the artillery, which remained in the line, entrained at Edgehill and Mericourt, and was moved to the area Longpré-Pont Remy. The following day it again entrained, and began to move into the Blaringham area.
High Wood now stands in the centre of a vast cemetery. There is barely a portion of ground of the size of a tennis court in all that country-side which does not contain the graves of one or more British soldiers. In the wood itself stand memorials erected to the memory of the fallen of many Divisions which were shattered there. The Highland Division was not by any means the only Division which failed to capture a natural fortress situated at the apex of a salient.