1st Battalion of the Border Regiment and one terrible day.

With today being Remembrance Sunday, here’s a transcript of the war diary of the 1st Battalion of the Border Regiment for an unspeakably grim day in history: the start of the Battle of the Somme.

But first, a reminder of when and what the battle was:

‘The 1916 Somme offensive was one of the largest and bloodiest battles of the First World War (1914-18). The opening day of the attack, 1 July 1916, saw the British Army sustain 57,000 casualties, the bloodiest day in its history. The campaign finally ended in mid-November after an agonising five-month struggle that failed to secure a breakthrough’

Source the National Army Museum (in London).

1st Battalion of the Border Regiment. The war diary

I’ve highlighted one truly sombre line. Not that any of makes for easy reading. The SWBs were the South Wales Borderers.

Place: front line

Date: 1/7/16

7:30am

The battalion (less 10%) advanced just south of a Beaumont Hamel, the objective being Beaucourt Redoubt.

The 2nd SWBs, whose objective was the first two German lines, were wiped out by gunfire in their own wire.

The 1st battalion the Border regiment then went over the top from our support line and over our first line, the bridge is over our front entrance front trench having been ranged by the German machine-gun as the day previously, we met with heavy losses while crossing these bridges and passing through the lanes out in our wire.

The men were absolutely magnificent and formed up as ordered outside the wire, made a right incline and advanced into No Man’s Land at a slow walk, also as ordered.

The advance was continued until only little groups of half a dozen men were left here and there, and then, finding that no reinforcements were in sight, took cover in shell holes or whatever they could.

8am

The advance was brought entirely to a standstill 

8:15 am. The enemy opened his bombardment on our trenches, for which our guns retaliated 

9:15am Lieutenant Colonel Ellis having been wounded and brought in by No 8409 Private Newcombe, Major Meiklejohn (who had been in command of the 10%) assumed command of the battalion and collected all the men he could in the supported line, as ordered by the brigadier.

10:30am. The 10% ordered back to reserve line, where they stayed until next morning. Advance definitely given up on this sector.

The terrible toll

At the start of the day, the 1st Battalion of the Border Regiment comprised:

• officers 23; 
• other ranks 809
• Total: 832

Casualties:

• killed: 66
• wounded: 423
• missing: 150
• Total: 639.

So of 832 men who started out at 7:30am, just three hours later, only 193 were left alive and unhurt.

That’s 77 per cent of the battalion killed, wounded, or missing. In three hours.

Behind the statistics

The war diary of the 1st Battalion of the Border Regiment doesn’t list the names of the ‘other ranks’ – there were too many of them.

Some 64 were killed, 411 wounded, and 144 were missing.

The officers were named. And a reminder: there were 23 officers at the start.

By mid-morning, 20 of them were out of action.

Killed:

Captain F R Jessup

Captain T H Beves

Missing, believed killed:

2nd Lieut W K Sanderson

2nd Lieut F J Baxemoine 

2nd Lieut A W Fraser

2nd Lieut L Jackson

Wounded and missing:

2nd Lieut H L Cholmeley

2nd Lieut W P Rettie

Wounded:

Lt Col A J Ellis

Capt J G Heyder

Lieut B L A Kennett

Lieut J B Sinclair

2nd Lieut G W N Rowsell

2nd Lieut F H Talbot

2nd Lieut H W H Barnes

2nd Lieut D Bremner

Lieut H F Sampson

2nd Lieut F T Wilkins

2nd Lieut D C R Stuart

2nd Lieut D Cargill.

I checked the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website and found that:

• Captain Francis Reginald Jessup, 1st Battalion, was 29. He was reported as being shot while leading his company under a terrible fire.
• Captain Trevor Howard Beves was 25 years old. He had been wounded three times already during the First World War, and had been awarded the Military Cross ‘for conspicuous gallantry and leadership’ in March 1915.
• 2nd Lieut Walter Ker Sanderson was indeed killed, aged 35. He’d lived in London and been an Officer of the House of Commons. He is recorded on the Thiepval Memorial, one of 72,307 men recorded on its panels who have no known grave.
• 2nd Lieut Lancelot Jackson likewise. He’d grow up at Crozier Lodge, Penrith. His father, Henry Jackson, had moved there from Yanwath. Lance’s older brother Charles Henry Jackson was also killed in action, in 1917.
• 2nd Lieut William Philip Rettie likewise, 24 years. He is also honoured in stained glass at Dundee Dental Hospital.
• 2nd Lieut Arthur William Fraser, who was 39 and a qualified surveyor, had previously been awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) for conspicuous gallantry in action. He is commemorated at Hawthorn Ridge Cemetery No 3, Auchonvillers, with 149 other men – 138 of them killed on the first day of the Battle of the Somme.
• 2nd Lieut F J Baxemoine was actually John Young Baxendine, of Edinburgh. He was 22 and is also commemorated at Hawthorn Ridge Cemetery, at No 2. Major John Meiklejohn wrote that he died: ‘leading his men in the most gallant manner, in the face of a terrible fire’.

One crumb of good news is that a newspaper report of July 15 lists Lieut (sic) H L Cholmeley as wounded. So no longer missing.

On the same page, the architect of the battle, Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) Field Marshall Sir Douglas Haig, was hailing the ‘successes’ so far:

‘All goes well.’

Not just the 1st Battalion of the Border Regiment

This post focuses on the war diary for the day of the 1st Battalion of the Border Regiment. But of course, that was ‘just’ one battalion.

To honour them, here’s the record of one ‘other rank’ from the 11th Battalion

IVINSON, THOMAS EDWARD, Private, No. 19552, 11th (Service) Battn,  The Border Regt.,

Son of Edward Ivinson, of Albyfield, Cumrew, Cumberland, Yeoman, by his wife, Jane, daughter of Thomas Laidman;

Born:. Ousby, near Penrith, 23 Sept. 1889;

Educated. Cumrew Village School; subsequently assisted his father on the farm.

Enlisted 22 May, 1915; served with the Expeditionary Force in France and Flanders from 25 December  following.

He was reported missing after the fighting on 1 July, 1916, and assumed to have been killed in action on or about that date.

Commemorated at the Thiepval Memorial.

Capt. M. G. Nelson wrote: “I can tell you from inquiries that he was very highly thought of among the fellows of his platoon and company.”

The image is a remembrance poppy in a window inside Carlisle Castle, taken a few years ago.