The history of the Twentieth (Light) Division

by Valentine Erskine Inglefield

From this it will be seen that the capture of Guillemont—the task which the Division had been ordered to carry out—was no easy matter. The attack was to form part of a larger operation carried out by the whole Fourth Army, in conjunction with the French on the right. It was originally intended that the attack should be made on the 24th of August. Before it could be launched a good deal of work had to be done. The trenches, which had been much damaged in the recent fighting, had to be repaired, and a new line had to be dug to serve as departure trenches for the assaulting troops. The night of the 23rd/24th was spent in digging this new line; the work, however, was so much interrupted by the enemy that not much progress could be made. About 9.15 P.M. a heavy bombardment was opened all along the front and support lines, followed at 10.30 by an advance against the 11th K.R.R.C., who were holding the front line of the 59th Brigade. The enemy was easily driven back by rifle and machine-gun fire, but the trenches were rather badly damaged by the bombardment, which caused about 150 casualties in the battalion attacked. By 11.30 all was quiet, and work was continued. At 12.30 A.M., however, the shelling broke out again, effectually stopping all further work for the night. XIVth Corps therefore ordered the attack to be postponed, confining the activities on the Divisional front to a modified artillery programme in support of operations which were carried out by the divisions on the right and left. On the evening of the 24th, after another heavy bombardment, the enemy attacked between the Quarries, on the west edge of the village, and the railway, but was again driven off, chiefly by machine-gun fire.

On the 25th and 26th the Division side-slipped to the right, the new front extending from 500 yards south of the Montauban-Guillemont road to 450 yards north-west of the village. On the 27th the 60th Brigade relieved the 61st in the left sub-sector. On the eve of this relief a direct hit on the headquarters of the 12th R.B., when a conference was taking place, unfortunately wounded five officers.

Meanwhile preparations for the attack were being pushed forward. Unfortunately, just at this time bad weather set in, and this, with the continued and heavy hostile shelling, in which gas shells were largely used, made the work extremely difficult. The trenches were deep in mud and water, and were constantly being blown in; some of the communication trenches were impassable, and all were in a very bad condition, so that it became a most difficult matter to bring up rations and ammunition and to effect reliefs in the front line. The state of the Carnoy-Montauban road was such that at one time, on the 29th, thirty-seven vehicles broke down and stuck in the mud. In addition to this, on the 25th the 11th R.B. lost about fifty men including their commanding officer, Lieut.-Colonel Harington, when the enemy attempted, without success, to enter their trenches, and the 12th K.R.R.C. had to repulse an attack which was made during a thunderstorm on the evening of the 29th against the right of the 60th Brigade line. After the thunderstorm, during which two of our observation balloons were struck by lightning and brought down, the trenches were in a worse state than ever. Moreover both No Man’s Land and the ground behind the trenches were covered with dead bodies which had been lying out for weeks, and the state of the whole line was foul. The men, too, were given little rest; on the night of the 28th/29th all available men of all three brigades were working in the forward area.

These very severe conditions told on the health of the troops, who were becoming so exhausted that it seemed doubtful whether they would be fit for the severe fighting which the capture of Guillemont would probably involve. Brig.-General Shute was asked whether, in view of the weakness of his units and the great strain to which the men had been put, he thought his brigade could take part in the attack. All ranks were keen to go through with the job which they had been sent to do, and it was decided that the operations could be carried out if the whole brigade might first go for a day or two right out of the line to rest. This was granted. The attack, after being postponed to the 29th, and again to the 30th, owing to the weather and the state of the ground, had been finally put off to the 3rd of September. The 10th R.B. and the 10th K.R.R.C. had been relieved on the 29th by the 7th K.O.Y.L.I. and the 7th D.C.L.I., and on the 31st the rest of the 59th Brigade was relieved by the rest of the 61st in daylight and under a heavy gas bombardment. The 59th marched back tired out, having lost just 600 casualties, not counting sick, in the nine days it had held this line.

The 60th Brigade had suffered so severely, and the strength of the units had been so seriously reduced, that on the 1st of September the Corps Commander decided that the 47th Brigade of the 16th Division should be used in the attack on Guillemont and that the 60th Brigade should be withdrawn into reserve. The relief was accordingly carried out that night. Passing through Montauban battalions again came under heavy shelling. Brig.-General Butler handed over his complete plans for the battle to the Brigadier-General commanding the 47th Brigade, and sent up his staff captain and signal officer to assist him. It was a great disappointment to Brig.-General Butler and the 60th Brigade to be taken out of the attack after all the work done and the hardships suffered in preparation for it, but the strongest battalion, the 6th Oxford and Bucks L.I., did not number more than 550 rifles, and the remaining three battalions together totalled only 1000. The 6th Oxford and Bucks L.I. were then attached as a fifth battalion to the 59th Brigade. All this involved a modification of the original operation orders, though the main features of the scheme remained the same, and new orders were issued on the 2nd of September. In spite of these changes such a short time before the attack, all the necessary arrangements were made and worked well during the battle.

Guillemont Station

Before describing the course of the battle it may be well to notice the lie of the ground and certain points that had an important effect on the operations. The enemy’s line ran a little to the west and north-west of Guillemont, which being part of his original second line of defence, though by this time reduced to a mass of ruins, was very strongly fortified. The village lay on high ground, but in a slight depression which is really the head of a long valley running up from the west. To the north, high ground extends for 3000 yards, with the village of Ginchy at the highest point; to the south, after forming a ridge from 400 to 1000 yards across, the ground fulls sharply in a series of irregular spurs and re-entrants towards the Somme. The most important of these re-entrants is a narrow valley which runs from Wedge Wood towards the north-east, merging just west of Leuze Wood into the high ground which extends east of Ginchy, and, except for the depression made by the upper end of this valley, east of Guillemont. Further east again the ground falls to the valley north of Combles. About 600 yards south-east of Wedge Wood is Falfemont Farm; 400 yards south-west of Guillemont are the remains of a small triangular plantation known as Arrow Head Copse, situated on the top of the ridge and overlooking the village. Running more or less south from the south-west corner of Guillemont are two sunken roads, which gave more trouble and cost more casualties than any other obstacle encountered both in this battle and in the previous attempts to take the village. The Quarries, on the west edge of the village, had been well fortified and formed a very strong point. It only remains to take note of two roads, one leading from Wedge Wood to Ginchy, and the other, known as Mount Street, running east and west through Guillemont to the north corner of Leuze Wood.

The Divisional boundaries and the front line are shown in Sketch “B.” The boundary between the brigades was Mount Street.

The essence of Major-General Douglas Smith’s plan was to attack Guillemont from the north side as well as from the west and on the south.