All day long fierce fighting continued but, although on the right of the line the 2nd Division gained their objectives, on the left the men of the 5th Division were held up at points. The climax of the day was reached at six o'clock in the evening, when a heavy counter-attack was launched all along the line by the enemy, but this counter-attack, in common with a similar one launched at 10.30 P.M. on the following night (28th), broke up under the fire of our guns. During this attack green flares were lighted all along the front by our foremost infantry at specified times, and although it was difficult to persuade them to do this, inasmuch as they considered that the flares would be equally useful to the enemy as well as to our guns in showing up their position, the information thus obtained of the progress of the assault was of very great value.
During the 28th and 29th the batteries busied themselves in preparing for future operations. Casualties in men and guns had been severe throughout the fighting, vast quantities of ammunition had been expended, and all this had now to be replaced. On the morning of the 27th a 5·9 in. shell had exploded directly in the pit where the men of B/162 (Major Johnston) were getting their breakfasts, killing and wounding every man in the pit, while on the afternoon of the 29th D/162 (Captain Bunbury) was heavily shelled and lost one and a half detachments who were practically blown to pieces. A 5·9 in. shell burst right upon a pile of ammunition beside one of its guns and exploded a number of rounds; in addition to the wiping out of the detachments, the gun itself was completely destroyed by the explosion, and only the piece and a portion of the spade were ever found afterwards. It is curious to note that the force of the explosion, which made a huge crater in the ground, threw a complete wagon of ammunition so high into the air that it came down some 150 yards from the battery, yet not a single round in the wagon exploded. As, in addition to this, all the guns of C/167 (Captain Fetherston) were out of action and the other batteries had suffered the usual daily casualties which now had become inevitable, it will be seen that the Divisional Artillery was in a fairly serious plight. However, the work had to be carried on, and on the afternoon of the 29th the batteries set themselves to the now familiar task of bombarding Switch Trench with 45 rounds per gun, in preparation for another attack which was due to take place on the morrow.
The bombardment proper for this attack began at 4.45 P.M. on the 30th, but previous to this there had been the short burst already referred to and another similar effort in the early morning from 3.15 to 5.15. At the same time our heavy artillery carried out a series of destructive—or, at least, would-be destructive—shoots on the enemy batteries; this was a most essential procedure, for the work of the batteries had been greatly impeded all the morning by an intense hostile gas shelling of the positions while, during the whole of the afternoon, the batteries on the ridge north of Caterpillar Wood were raked from end to end by high explosive. At last, however, the final bombardment opened, and from 4.45 P.M. till 6.10 P.M. the German defences between High Wood and Delville Wood were subjected to 800 rounds per 18-pdr. battery and 400 rounds per 4·5 in. howitzer battery all along the front. Seven minutes before zero, which was at 6.10 P.M., fire was quickened to intense rate, and at zero hour troops of the XIII. and XV. Corps advanced to the attack, having for their objectives the sunken road running from the N.W. face of Delville Wood to the east corner of High Wood. The XIII. Corps, who were on the right, reached their objectives successfully, but the XV. Corps, advancing on the left of the XIII., were not so fortunate; enfilade machine gun fire from strong points near the orchards north of Longueval held them up, while their left, although successful in reaching the sunken road near the corner of High Wood, was subjected to such a perfect hell of high explosive that it was shelled out and forced to retire. Thus at 8 P.M., when firing was reduced to normal, the situation was but little different to what it had been before the attack.
The attack of the 30th was very typical of the tactics in practice at this time in the Somme battle. The same thing had been seen in the previous assaults of the 20th and 23rd, and the same thing was to be seen in subsequent operations; small attacks on limited areas—perhaps only on a two division front—were launched and, nine times out of ten, were doomed to failure by their narrow scope. There is no doubt that individual strong points were holding up the general advance and had to be overwhelmed before any more ambitious plans were undertaken, but there is also no doubt that, when these unfortunate battalions went over the parapet upon some purely local undertaking, they were immediately subjected to machine gun fire in enfilade from the flanks, where no attack was taking place, and to overwhelming shell fire from batteries on neighbouring zones, which, owing to the undisturbed state of their own zone, were able to add to the already heavy volume of fire on the front attacked. It may be that the Higher Command was right in its handling of the situation, but for the men on the spot it was heart-breaking to see battalions of the finest material launched to certain death on an attack which, by the narrowness of its front, was doomed to failure before it ever began.
July 30th and 31st contained nothing more of importance than three S.O.S. calls from Delville Wood, and on Tuesday, August 1st, at 5.30 A.M. orders were received with dramatic suddenness for the 162nd and 166th Brigades to be relieved by the 78th and 79th Brigades of the 17th Divisional Artillery. In a fever-heat of expectation the batteries of the two brigades waited all day long for the orders to take effect; at last, between four and seven o'clock in the afternoon, the incoming units arrived, and with heartfelt thanks the batteries, taking their guns with them, marched back to the wagon lines. It was unfortunate that D/78 should have chosen the moment to relieve D/162 when four low-flying German aeroplanes were right overhead, but choose it they did, and the price had to be paid. The incoming battery was a little ahead of its time, and, as a result, when the teams and limbers of D/162 appeared on the scene the shell storm for which the aeroplanes had called was just beginning. Whizz bangs, 4·2 in. and 5·9 in. shell poured down upon the battery position and horses for over half an hour, and how the battery escaped with such light casualties as it did, was a marvel. One gun and one ammunition dump were destroyed, several drivers and horses were hit, but in no way was the relief disorganised, and D/162, after manœuvring under a hail of shells, ultimately withdrew towards the Montauban flank. For the rest of the evening Caterpillar Valley all around and south-west of Mametz Wood was deluged with shells, and the batteries who chose that route for their outgoing march had an extremely unpleasant time. All got away in the end, however, and after a short halt at the wagon lines continued the march. Dernancourt, which was the destination of the batteries, was reached at 2.30 A.M., and here they remained till the 11th resting, refitting and generally cleaning up after the ordeal of the past eighteen days.
Only two brigades were now left in the line—the 156th and the 167th—and, as Headquarters staff of the 33rd Divisional Artillery had gone into rest at Dernancourt, these two were put under the command of the 51st Division. The zone covered by the 156th Brigade extended along the High Wood—Bazentin-le-Petit road southwards from the north-west corner of the wood, while the 167th Brigade looked after the road running south-east from the eastern edge of High Wood; D/156 (Captain Studd) carried out counter-battery duties. From August 1st to August 11th little of importance in the way of operations occurred. Hostile attacks on Bazentin-le-Petit on the 2nd and against High Wood on the 10th were repulsed by our fire, while on the 4th and the 7th minor infantry engagements were carried out by our troops on the orchards and houses along the north-west edge of Delville Wood and on High Wood respectively.
Very heavy firing took place throughout this period, and during the week ending August 17th the 156th Brigade fired no less than twelve thousand rounds, while the German artillery must have flung something like the same amount into our positions. B/167 (Major Stewart) was shelled out and had to move on the 3rd to a position six hundred yards east of Caterpillar Wood, where it was joined next day by Captain Fetherston's battery (C/167) which had also undergone a severe gruelling at the hands of the enemy. A/167 (Captain Talbot) proved no less unfortunate than the other two batteries, and on the 5th, after a very heavy shelling which lasted all day, it was compelled to move to a position alongside "B" and "C," where it went to form two six-gun batteries instead of three consisting of four guns each. At the same time the brigade was temporarily handed over to the command of Major Stewart, for Lieut.-Colonel L. T. Goff had on the previous day been evacuated sick to England. Thus the two brigades remained shelling and being shelled, day in day out, until August 11th, when the other two brigades (162nd and 166th) came up into the line from the Dernancourt rest area and relieved them. The 156th and 167th had been in action continuously since July 16th under the most trying and harassing of conditions. They had been subjected to shelling more severe than any yet experienced in the war, and, when they marched out to rest on the evening of the 11th, they were utterly exhausted, utterly worn out, a party of very tired and weary men.
On returning to the line on the 11th the batteries of the 162nd Brigade did not reoccupy their old positions but, after reconnaissance by Lieut.-Colonel Harris, formed two six-gun 18-pdr. batteries under the command of Major Johnston and Captain van Straubenzee, and took up positions on the southern slopes bordering Caterpillar Valley, at a point about three hundred yards N.N.W. of Montauban. At the same time D/162, which from the 8th onwards had been sending parties up from Dernancourt to dig gun-pits and prepare the place for occupation, came into action under the northern bank of Caterpillar Valley about five hundred yards to the right front of the other two batteries, which was the position it had originally been intended to occupy on July 15th. The 166th Brigade took up positions 500 yards north of Caterpillar Wood.
While these two brigades had been out at rest a change had taken place amongst the infantry, and the guns now covered the 33rd Division (forming part of the XV. Corps), with the 14th Division on the right and the 1st Division on the left, the tactical command of the batteries being in the hands of the 14th Divisional Artillery. From the 11th until the 18th the lull in infantry fighting, which had been noticeable in this sector since the beginning of the month, continued, but the work of the guns was as usual very heavy. In addition to counter-battery work and minor bombardments, four hundred and fifteen 18-pdr. rounds by day and five hundred by night had to be expended by each brigade on searching and sweeping roads and hollows behind the brigade zone, while the 4·5 in. howitzers carried out the same work to the extent of two hundred and thirty-three rounds by day and one hundred and sixty-six by night. The zone in question was the extreme right of the 33rd Divisional front, along the enemy front line known as Wood Lane. Fortunately for the batteries, hostile shelling upon the gun positions was far less violent than had been the case before the two brigades went into rest, and it was now possible to get through a very fair amount of registration without interference from enemy shell fire; this was important, for the guns had to be ranged upon a number of new points owing to the change in position, while a wireless set which had been installed at Brigade Headquarters enabled numerous "N.F." calls to be picked up from our aeroplanes, all of which were acted upon by the howitzer batteries of the respective brigades.
On the 16th orders were received for an attack to be delivered on Friday, the 18th, and in preparation for this the ammunition allotted for night firing was doubled on the nights of the 16th and 17th, while by day the guns bombarded Wood Lane, cutting the wire and shelling not only the trench but also No Man's Land in front thereof, lest the German machine-gunners should creep out forward and thereby escape our barrage. At 2.45 P.M. on the 18th the attack was launched by the 33rd Division, with the 14th Division on its right. In addition to the preceding two-days shelling, the whole of the morning of the attack, with two short forty-minute intervals, was devoted to barrage firing on the enemy trenches, the barrage of 18-pdrs. lifting at three given times to suggest an impending assault, whereupon the 4·5 in. howitzers, a few minutes after the "lift," dropped back on to Wood Lane (the enemy front line) to catch such of the enemy as had manned the parapet to withstand an attack. Immediately prior to zero hour there was no bombardment; it was hoped to start the attack simultaneously along the whole front, and the best means of achieving this was considered to be an opening of the barrage at zero itself, without any bombardment during the preceding five minutes.