Current Information:

Born-Bermondsey

Heilly Station Cemetery, Mericourt-l'Abbe, France

The Battle of the Somme (July-November, 1916)

On 1st July 1916 The British Army launched a massive offensive along a section of the front line running north of the River Somme. The French attacked south of it. The first day was a disaster for the British army which suffered nearly 60,000 casualties, 19,000 of whom were killed, and made hardly any inroads into the enemy lines. But the battle had to go on, if for no other reason than to relieve pressure on the French at Verdun where they had been facing the full onslaught of the powerful German Army. So it continued all the way through to November with nearly every battalion and division then in France being drawn into it at some stage. In the end the German trenches had been pushed back a few miles along most of the line but the cost in lives had been staggering. By the end of the fighting in November, 1916, British Army casualties numbered over 400,000, killed, wounded and missing.

Between 6th July and 22nd August 1916, 111 Brigade of 37th Division, was attached to the 34th Division after the latter’s heavy losses on 1st July. After having been involved in the Battle of Bazentin Ridge between 14th-16th July, 13th King’s Royal Rifle Corps spent the rest of the month, in and out of the line south of Pozières to where they moved from Mametz Wood on 3rd August. Conditions were awful. The trenches were shallow, there were many unburied bodies lying around and the German artillery was relentless. They were relieved on 6th August and moved back to Mametz Wood but there was no let up from the shelling and it was very likely that it was this that caused the death of George Davis  on 11th August.