Current Information:

Born-Liverpool

Enlisted-Hounslow

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

By the beginning of October, 1916,  the Battle of the Somme had been raging for three 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.

12th Division had been heavily involved in the Battle of the Somme in July and early August 1916, but had then been transferred to the Arras front for the rest of the summer. They were relieved from this sector on 26th September and moved back to the Somme, taking over forward positions in appalling conditions at Geudecourt in Grid and Grid Support trenches on 1st-2nd October in preparation for an attack a few days later. The battalion diary entry for  the 8th Royal Fusiliers battalion, 36 Brigade on 4th October recorded that the shelling of their positions continued again, all day and night and that two officers had to be sent back suffering from shell shock. Other ranks of course were not allowed to suffer from shell shock and just had to sit it out. Four of them, one of whom was William Cust, were killed on this day.