2nd Lieut. Routley and a Sussex officer made a reconnaissance as far as Mouquet Farm. The enemy tried a counter-attack from this place, but it melted away before our Lewis guns. Two German officers and 87 other ranks, mostly Prussian infantry, were unearthed from the dug-outs of the captured works. The battalion was relieved, about 11 a.m. on the 4th, by the 6th West Kent, and went back to huts in Martinsart Wood, having lost 4 officers wounded and 114 casualties of other ranks.
On the 10th August a somewhat curious accident occurred. In the early morning our 60-pounder trench mortars bombarded a German sap with good effect. 2nd Lieut. McDermott crossed over to it when the bombardment lifted. After he had dropped a Stokes Mortar bomb down a dug-out the Germans all fled. It was therefore arranged to take this sap after some bombs had been got up. These were duly carried up and stacked ready for use, and Captain Ward and Lieut. Sir R. Onslow were ready to conduct operations. About 2.30 our trench mortars opened fire again by way of preparation, but unfortunately one shot fell short, right into the middle of our stack of bombs, exploding about 1,500 of them and wounding both the officers named and an orderly. As the bombs were lost the affair had to be given up.
On the 12th August the brigadier was informed that the attack on this portion of our line was to be in future of the nature of a holding one, and was not to be pushed home if much opposition was encountered. On this day news from England came that Captain Farmer and 2nd Lieut. Bond had been awarded the M.C., Corpl. Tamblin the D.C.M., and that there were Military Medals for Sgt. Fox and Ptes. Anderson, Blackshaw, Browning, Hughes, Luchford and Setterfield.
On the 14th August the brigade marched away from the Somme area to the northward and did not return to this district till the 29th September. It relieved the 34th Brigade in the neighbourhood of Beaumetz and Betrencourt, which are villages some seven miles or so south-west of Arras. Except for some trench-mortar activity this sector was fairly quiet. The battalion was here for about six weeks and then returned to the Somme, where by this time the British line had been very considerably advanced. The 1st October found the 37th Brigade about Lonqueval, whence it passed into a reserve line south of Guedecourt.
The ground was now so bad and the roads north of this part of the Somme so inferior that transport became a great difficulty, and troops had to rely almost entirely on pack animals for the supply of the necessary food and warlike stores. Indeed, an attack arranged for the 4th October had to be postponed for forty-eight hours on account of rain and bad weather. On the 6th of the month the Buffs were in the front line of their brigade.
Then an operation order was issued commencing with the words: “The general advance of the Allies will be resumed.” This order was, as usual, clear and minute as to detail, and it gave both a first and a second objective. The Buffs were on the right of their brigade and the Royal West Kent on the left. Of the Buffs themselves, A Company was on the right, B in the centre and C on the left, and each of these companies was given its own individual objective. D Company sent three platoons as carrying party to the other three companies, while its fourth was directed to construct a strong point. The attack was ordered to be carried out in four waves at fifty yards interval; each platoon extended to two yards interval, bayonets to be fixed and magazines charged. Each man carried 220 rounds of small-arm ammunition, and the carrying parties had a further supply. The artillery was to lift every minute and fifty yards at a time. Arrangements were made to signal to the contact aeroplanes. The zero hour was fixed at 1.45 p.m. on the 7th October, but the enemy must have known what was coming, for an hour before that the Buffs were heavily shelled, and at 1.30 the Germans opened a tremendous machine-gun fire and shrapnel barrage on the front trenches. However, at the correct moment the attack opened, and it was met with an excessively heavy machine-gun and rifle fire which came from an unexpected quarter. This held up C Company, but A and B reached the first objective, suffering, however, somewhat severely. On trying to advance further they were completely stopped by the German machine guns, as were the West Kent on their left. About twenty men of A Company succeeded in joining the 61st Brigade on the right and they advanced with it; this brigade attained its objective. The first objective gained by our men was bravely held all the day until relieved at midnight by the 6th Battalion The Queen’s. Throughout the afternoon the lines had been subjected to a great deal of bombing from the high ground above them and to enfilade fire from the flanks. Lt.-Colonel Cope was severely wounded, and Captain T. Pagen, R.A.M.C., was killed in attempting to go to his assistance. The battalion, forty strong, was taken out of action by the adjutant, Captain Page, the only officer who was not either killed or wounded. It was for no slight reasons that the 6th Buffs were stopped in their advance. Eight officers were killed: Lieut. P. R. Hatch, 2nd Lieuts. A. E. S. Ommanney, G. S. M. Norrie, E. G. Routley, Loft, D. A. Harnett and R. B. N. Moss, and Captain Pagen, R.A.M.C.; and twelve wounded: Lt.-Colonel Cope, D.S.O., Lieuts. Cumberbatch, Bond and Chapman, 2nd Lieuts. Kidd, Woolbridge, Taylor, Springay-Mason, Turk, Taylor and Jacobs. There were 347 casualties amongst the rank and file—killed, wounded and missing. Yes, the 7th October, 1916, was another dreadful day in the long history of the regiment, as well as in the short one of its 6th Battalion, but the ancient honour showed no sign of deterioration at this Battle of the Transloy Ridges.
Now reduced to a mere skeleton of a battalion, though drafts began to arrive almost daily after the 16th of the month, it was necessary after a few days’ rest near Lonqueval to remove it, on the 21st October, to the quieter sector of Reviere, in the district from which it had come to the Somme at the end of September.
There was a certain amount of official correspondence about this great fight, as there always is when full success is not gained by British efforts; it seems clear that the artillery barrage was not strong enough to keep down the hostile fire, that our front line was not continuous, but had gaps in it, and that the ground was not suitable for forming for attack.
Major Dawson assumed the acting command of the battalion, rendered vacant by Lt.-Colonel Cope becoming a casualty.