For such a key year for the First World War, rather frustratingly, there is no primary source information from Walter Hitchcock about 1916. It is frustrating - and slightly shameful - to write so little. Given the chance to interview again, with the knowledge now of how involved the 8th Queen’s Royal West Surrey were in the Battle of the Somme, more questions could be asked. Perhaps the lack of reference to this time was deliberate on the part of Walter Hitchcock?
What we do have documented are the movements of great-grandad’s battalion during 1916. I have summarised these here. A goal for another day is to go back through Walter’s letters and artifacts with a view to finding some personal link to these events.
January - June 1916
On January 3rd, it was much rumoured that the 24th Division would be heading for the Hooge Salient B1 and on the 5th, the 8th Queen’s marched to a collection of huts to the west of the Ouderdom - Vlamertinghe road. To put the relative to the German line in context, while staying in these huts, a Second-Lieutenant C.P. Burnley walked towards the German wire and brought back a small German flag, “bearing an eagle upon it” B1, which had been spotted earlier in the day. Unfortunately, the same Second-Lieutenant Burnley went to explore a trench the follow day, dropped into it, and was immediately surprised to be captured and taken prisoner.
To further illustrate how close to the enemy lines WH would have been at this point, the regimental history B1 documents that, after moving for the Dranoutre area on 28 March and staying in three large farms near Wulverghem, the regiment was no more the thirty yards - or twenty-eight meters - from the German trenches. Although arms exchange was not frequent, the 8th Queen’s suffered a great number of casualties through the enemy’s use of gas B1, leaving the Battalion numbers low by June. Reinforcements arrived but the Battalion was hit hard again after a heavy and prolonged gas attack on the night of the 16th/17th June. The regimental history records this as a particularly long and heavy attack - about an hour and a half - and was followed by heavy bombardment against “B” Company - WH’s company - in the region of Wulverghem.
July, The Somme
There can be few in Europe to whom the words, ‘the Somme’, do not conjure up images terrible suffering. The battle of the Somme began on 1st July, 1916. It is disappointing that WH’s personal involvement has not been documented. However, it is possible to trace the movement of WH’s regiment during the battle and, although some aspects of WH WW1 involvement were family stories while I was growing up, I have been surprised during this light research to read how personally deeply involved my great-grandfather must have been at this most famous - infamous - battles of modern war.
At the outbreak of hostilities, and for most of July, 72nd Brigade (which included WH’s battalion) was used for defencive purposes, ending up at “Stinking Farm”, Battalion HQ, on 18/19 July.
From the regimental history B1 it is possible to ascertain that there was a lot of movement for WH’s battalion between 24th July and 10 August, with a lot of training and additional movement orders cancelled soon after they were received, such. However, on the evening of the 10th August, the Battalion found itself at the front, near Talus Bosiee <map>; 382 being the total ‘trench strength’ with the rest of the Battalion in reserve in the former German front line - essentially craters. It is not known in which section WH was positioned.
What is known is that at 4.30pm on 21st August, the 8th Queen’s - along with the 17th Infantry Brigade - went in for the attack.B1 The enemy was found to be in large numbers than anticipated, and quite close by, and a fierce bomb-fight ensued, in which neither side made any gains. With this, and other skirmishes around the 21st, the 8th Queens lost 89 souls plus seven officers. However, by the end of August, with the brigade in the Longueval area, an additional 224 men joined 8th Queen’s, along with one officer.
Although WH did not leave detailed records of his movements at this time, if the knowledge that he was in B Company is applied to the documented history, then it is possible to ascertain that, on 1st September, WH would have moved with the Queen’s into Delville Wood, near Longueval, with B Company in the ‘Inner Trench’. The story is best told by the regimental history by Colonel H.C. Wylly, C.B.,B1
“Here the Battalion remained in vile weather for three days, during the whole of which time the enemy continued to batter all that was once Delville Wood; only the stumps of trees remained, the whole centre of the wood being now a mass of tangled and rotting debris, still strewn with corpses and at intervals made impassable by wire which both sides had thrown up during the confused and terrible fighting which had preceded the capture of the ground. At night the place was a veritable maze, illuminated only by the bursting shells and the pale rays of a Very light. Formed troops could only be moved through it all after lights, carefully, shaded from the enemy, had been hung at short intervals on the stumps of trees, and even then reliefs and ration parties only dribbled slowly through the front line.
It soon became apparent that it was unthinkable to remain within the wood without incurring very heavy losses and on the night of 5th/6th September The Queen’s were relieved, having lost 26 men (including one officer), with 104 non-commissioned men injured and 13 missing.
So this was the horror of The Somme. Perhaps a modern audience has been anaesthetised to the worst of the conditions by the many dramatised interpretations. However, it remains that this was a hellish place to have been, which may account for an absence of detail in WH’s personal recollections?
While the battle of the Somme continued, the RSWR moved into reserve positions, the first three weeks of October being spent in the neighbourhood of Camblain l’Abbé until, on the 24th October, the Battalion marched to billets at Mazingarbe, seeing out the remainder of 1916 in this position where, as the regimental history documents,B1 “the rest of the year was passed, without any incidents of unusual importance taking place on the front occupied by the 8th Queen’s”.
References
B1 History of the Queen's Royal (West Surrey) Regiment In The Great War, Colonel H. C. Wylly, C.B., N&M Press, ISDN 9781843425397
