Current Information:

Military Medal

Enlisted-Harrow Road

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.

On 1st July, 1916, 56th (London) Division had been heavily involved during the opening day of the Battle of the Somme when they attacked the German defences at Gommecourt on the northern edge of the battlefield. They remained in that sector until they moved south in the beginning of September and on 6th September they relieved 5th Division on the extreme right of the line, next to the French. This new sector, including the village of Guillemont, had just been captured on 3rd September after many weeks of hard fighting. The next target for the British was the village on Ginchy which was successfully taken by 16th Division on 9th September with 56th Division supporting them to the south. 167 Brigade was in reserve for this attack and in the early afternoon, 3rd London left the Citadel Camp near Fricourt and moved to a more forward position near Maltz Horn Farm. The following day, 167 Brigade relieved 168 Brigade in the positions they had captured in and around Leuze Wood. On 11th September, 3rd Guards Brigade attacked at Ginchy to the left of 167 Brigade and in the ensuing artillery barrage that the enemy fired to disrupt this action, 3rd London suffered over 100 casualties. This fierce artillery storm continued throughout the next two days until they were relieved from these forward positions and more names were added to the casualty list. One of these was Thomas Evans who was killed on 13th September.