Gommecourt & Somme Preparations

Charles’ battalion was to see substantial action during the later phases of the Somme campaign, but as they been at Loos, they were again fortunate to be held in reserve on the opening day of the assault. In this case, July 1st 1916, the fateful and iconic ‘first day of the Somme’, where almost 20,000 British soldiers met their fate.

None-the-less, the battalion spent 7 days prior to the offensive from the 21st to the 27th of June manning the front line trenches in front of Hebuterne. On the night of the 23rd a violent thunderstorm broke over the whole front, and the trenches were, in some places knee deep in water. The next day the intense preliminary bombardment of the German lines began, and whilst the enemy’s retaliation was initially slight, it grew over the next four days to a crescendo. As the casualties increased, the condition of the trenches deteriorated as both the bombardment and the rain continued. A Regimental history, Die-hards in the Great War by Everard Wyrall describes the situation thus;

“The men were now standing in water up to their knees and their physical condition began to be serious: on the 24th they had been soaked to the skin; there were no means of furnishing hot food or hot drinks, and the hostile shell fire made sleep impossible. The 4th day of the bombardment (27th) again drew heavy retaliation from the enemy, which with constant rain, produced appalling conditions in the front line trenches.” On the night of the 27th, Charles’ Battalion was withdrawn from the front line, and into billets at Hénu and Souastre. During their seven days on the front line the Battalion suffered losses of 16 killed, 119 wounded, 11 missing and 63 evacuated sick with ‘trench feet’.

During the first 10 weeks of the Somme campaign the 1/8th Middlesex was not used as an assaulting battalion, instead spending a total of 26 days holding the front line in the Gommecourt area, spread over 5 separate occasions.