Current Information:

Enlisted-London

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.

35th Division had been involved in some of the fighting on the Somme during July, 1916, notably the Battle of Bazentin Ridge during the middle of the month. 18th Lancashire Fusiliers of 104 Brigade had taken part in a raid on Maltz Horn Farm on 22nd July and on 27th July they were relieved and moved back to Minden Post. On 30th July they were temporarily attached to 30th Division and moved up to Casement Trench to support an operation. However they were not used and moved back to Minden Post. The Battalion Diary makes no mention of any casualties on this day but other records, including those of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, record that there were 56 killed in total, a very high number for one battalion on a single day, and that surprisingly, 25 of those were Londoners. What is more, all those London men had previously been in either the Middlesex or Suffolk regiments. It seems unlikely that many, if indeed any of these deaths occurred  in the Minden Post-Casement Trench area so there is a bit of a mystery surrounding them. There were only 85 recorded deaths for 18th Lancashire Fusiliers for the whole of July, 1916 so perhaps these 56 had not been officially recorded until 30th July, when the battalion was out of the line, in which case their actual date of death is unknown. Alternatively these men were somewhere else on the Somme on 30th July, a party of men attached to another unit perhaps. Any further information on the circumstances of the death of Joseph Cairns will be welcomed and added to this page.