Current Information:

Queen Victoria Street, EC4

Born-Bethnal Green

Hebuterne Military Cemetery, Somme

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

By the beginning of September, 1916,  the Battle of the Somme had been raging for two months. Thousands of men had already been killed or wounded or were simply missing, never to be seen again and and just a few square miles of the French countryside, all in the southern part of the battlefield, had been captured from the enemy. Mistakes had been made by the various commanders and would be continued to be made but there was no turning back as the British, Australians, South Africans, New Zealanders and Canadians carried on battering away at the German defences in the hope of a breakthrough, 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 more 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.

17th King’s Royal Rifle Corps of 117 Brigade, 39th Division had suffered heavily during an attack on the River Ancre on 3rd September and had then been withdrawn to the back areas to reorganise and for further training. On 20th September the battalion returned to front line duty when they moved into the trenches at Hebuterne at the northern end of the Somme battlefield. At this time this was one of the quieter sectors of the Somme but it was not entirely immune to death and destruction as was witnessed on 21st September when at least three man from 17th King’s Royal Rifle Corps were killed, one of them being Henry Bishop. The Battalion Diary makes no mention of casualties on this day so there is no record of the circumstances of their deaths but the probable cause was artillery fire which accounted for 60% of all casualties on the Western Front.