Wednesday 8th September 1915: The adjutant of the 7th Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment is Captain Paul Raymond Meautys(1). He updated us this morning about what happened to his unit yesterday as it mans the front line near the village of Fricourt north of the River Somme and suggested that we might like to print some of these snapshots or daily life in the trenches, to which we have agreed(2).
Yesterday morning the weather was fine and warm, about 11 am the Germans fired two rounds High Explosive which fell near a redoubt close by. Our guns replied with three rounds of shell. Three men reported wounded.
At 10pm the 11th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers blew up a mine. This was followed by rapid rifle fire and by machine gun fire. The Royal Fusiliers occupied the lip of the crater they had created(3). The Bedfords suffered one killed and one wounded.
Source: X550/8/1
(1) Sadly he would be killed on 16th June 1917 when serving with 2nd Battalion, South Staffordshire Regiment; he was 26 years old and lies buried in London Cemetery, Neuville-Vitasse near Arras.
(2) Robert Graves gives a vivid description of front line life in precisely this spot in his book Goodbye to All That. He was an officer in 1st Battalion, Royal Welch Fusiliers in 7th Division (the same division as 2nd Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment)
(3) The Somme was chalk downland which was easy to mine.
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