Road to St. Julien by William St. Clair

Author:William St. Clair
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781783034437
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2013-07-11T16:00:00+00:00

9 July 1916

On duty at 6.00 am. It is beyond me to describe what we are seeing just now. I don’t think I shall ever forget anything of this experience.

18 July 1916

A disaster at the ADS.am A shell dropped right into the DS. Killed five and wounded nine of our Ambulance. Some awful cases down today.

19 July 1916

Went to Corps HQ in the General’s car to cut the corps staff officers’ hair. At E Britton’s funeral. an

LONGUEVAL AND DELVILLE WOOD

The task of XIII Corps in the Somme Offensive was to gain control of the ridge running from Waterlot Farm to Bazentin-le-Grand, probably the toughest task on the whole front.49 The key to the ridge was Longueval and Delville Wood, and it was given to the 9th Division to take these positions. The position of XIII Corps was already a salient and success would intensify it, meaning enfilading fire and risk of being cut off. The ground was vital to the German defences and was held by seasoned troops.ao But possession of the high ground near Longueval was the pivot of Haig’s immediate plans as it would facilitate an attack on High Wood in the north, and it was essential to an advance on Ginchy and Guillemont. The 9th Division first assisted the 30th Division on 8 July in trying to clear an intermediate position at Trones Wood. The main attack took place on 14 July against well-prepared German positions with no element of surprise. The normally restrained Divisional History50 summed up what happened to 27 Brigade attacking in the northern part of Longueval, ‘The melancholy roll of the killed and wounded was the monument of the devotion with which the men had attempted to do more than men could do. Out of a total of barely 3000, the Brigade lost eighty-one officers and 2003 men, and the great majority of the killed and missing, 569 in all, left their bones in the blood-soaked undergrowth of the orchards of Longueval’.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.