Let two teams dressed in battle order play football in the dark on a ploughed field in a clay soil after three weeks’ steady rain, and the difficulties of the attacking troops might then in some measure be appreciated.
The left of the 7th Gordon Highlanders and the right of the 6th Black Watch were delayed in their advance by machine-guns from the south of the “Y” Ravine. The German garrison on the point of this salient was thus able to man the front trench, and beat off our attack at this point by the volume of their fire. Here the enemy maintained himself for several hours. Being in a position from which they obtained splendid observation both to the north and south, they made communication with the forward troops who had swept on, on either flank extremity, difficult.
[Map III].—Beaumont Hamel, 13th November 1916.
A gap had also been caused in the centre of the next battalion through wire just south of the crater, which had been screened from observation by being uncut.
On the left of the 5th Seaforth Highlanders, the 8th Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders had received a temporary check caused by machine-gun fire on their extreme left, and had suffered heavily. The remainder of the battalion had, however, pressed forward on the flanks, captured the guns, and enabled the advance to be continued to the third German line.
By 7.50 A.M. it was reported that troops of both brigades had reached the third German line, and many prisoners had been taken, but pockets of Germans were still holding out in various points in the first and second lines. These pockets were, no doubt, formed by parties of the enemy who had come up into the front line out of the various underground tunnels.
Casualties had been unduly heavy, as the state of the ground had proved in places so bad that the troops had been unable to keep up with the barrage.
At this hour the position in the village was obscure. The 153rd Infantry Brigade had employed all its reserves in its endeavour to carry the “Y” Ravine, where a party of the enemy, estimated at from three to four hundred strong, was offering a most gallant and successful resistance, all attacks to overcome them being beaten off.
Two companies of the 4th Gordon Highlanders from the Divisional reserve were therefore ordered forward and placed at the disposal of General Campbell. Meanwhile General Burn had ordered forward a company from the reserve battalion (6th Gordon Highlanders) to fill the gap caused in the ranks of the 5th Seaforth Highlanders by uncut wire. This company successfully entered the German second line, but was unable to debouch from it owing to machine-gun fire from the German third line. Two bombing squads from the 6th Gordon Highlanders were therefore sent forward to clear the front. These squads were extremely well handled by their leaders, and by attacking the machine-guns in the third line from the flank succeeded in capturing 2 officers and 51 men. This action enabled the whole of the right battalion to reach the Green line. Two other bombing squads were also ordered forward from the 6th Gordon Highlanders to bomb southwards, so as to clear the left flank of the 6th Black Watch. It was not, however, until dusk that all resistance in this area was successfully overcome.