ISBN: 9781406896992

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www. million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHA… More...

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www. million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III ULSTERS' ATTACK ON THE SLOPES OF THIEPVAL "NOT A MAN TURNED TO COME BACK, NOT ONE " The Division was put to the great test on July 1, 1916, the memorable day of the opening of the Battle of the Somme and the British attack in force to break through the German trenches in Picardy. It was a Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www. million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III ULSTERS' ATTACK ON THE SLOPES OF THIEPVAL "NOT A MAN TURNED TO COME BACK, NOT ONE " The Division was put to the great test on July 1, 1916, the memorable day of the opening of the Battle of the Somme and the British attack in force to break through the German trenches in Picardy. It was a formidable task. The strength of the enemy positions was that they stood on high ground. That, also, was the reason of their importance. The tableland must be taken and held to permit of an advance in the stretch of open country spreading on the other side to the north. It was to be uphill work. So the battle became the greatest the world has ever known, so far, for its dimensions, the numbers engaged and the duration. The Ulstermen were in the left wing of the British lines, and the scene of their operations was, roughly, three miles of broken country, dips and swells, on each side of the river Ancre, between the village of Beaumont Hamel, nestling in a nook of the hill above the river, eastwards to the slopes of Thiep- val, perched on a height about 500 feet, below the river, all within the German lines. The main body of the Division assembled in the shelter of a Thiepval wood. "Porcupine Wood " it was called by the men. The trees were so stripped of foliage and lopped into distorted shapes by enemy gun-fire that their barelimbs stood up like quills of the fretful porcupine. At half-past seven in the morning the advance commenced. For ten days the British batteries had been continuously bombarding the whole German front. There was no sudden hush of the cannonade at the moment of the attack. For a minute there was a dramatic pause while the guns were being lifted a point higher so that they might drop their shells behind the enemy's first lines. Then the British infantry Books, History~~Military~~General, Irish-on-the-Somme~~Michael-Mac Donagh, 999999999, The Irish On The Somme, Michael Macdonagh, John Redmond (Introduction), 1406896993, Echo Library, , , , , Echo Library<