High Wood Body Clearance

[Seadog]

There have been discussions on whether High Wood was ever cleared of the dead after the war. This is a quote which would appear to confirm that the dead were buried in the wood. The section of the “Body Density” map appears to show no known burials in the wood.

From the book Band of Brigands p257 (PB)

Second Lieutenant G E V Thompson had enlisted in the London Regiment on the outbreak of war. He saw his first tank in late September 1916 wrecked in the charnel house of High Wood. As he recalls “I was in charge of the burying party, I used the tank as an office where I could muster my lists out of the rain”. The mass burials went on in the wood, day after day the Padre intoning “overlong” services under light shelling.

The Book The Hell They Called High Wood states that the dead are still there

The questions are:

Is there proof that the wood was cleared of the dead

If not it would seem appropriate that some form of official memorial should erected by the CWGC stating that the dead are still in this place.

No doubt this subject has been discussed many times in the past and the matter may have been resolved but it would be good to have either set of circumstances confirmed

Regards

Norman

[Phil Evans]

One thing that has always puzzled me when this subject comes up is the sheer practicality of digging mass graves within a wood. I don't know what density the tree growth was to start with and accept that extensive shelling led to substantial ground disturbance, but even so, why use the wood itself?

Also, why are squares 4b and 4d blank as well on the Body Density map? Was Square 4 as a whole treated as a special case?

Phil

[gilbo139]

Could it be that there was such a high concentration of shelling over a relatively long period by both sides that there was very little to recover and thats why its never been officially cleared? Colin

[Guest]

An interesting article from PapersPast

Mike

[Seadog]

For years we have understood that the owners of the wood have treated this place with respect and believe that many fallen still remain within its boundaries. This is a laudable attitude but if it is the fact that the dead are still here then why is there not a proper information board or indeed memorial stone indicating that fact perhaps similar to those we see in CWGC war cemeteries inscribed “known to be buried” or similar. Given the figures for the dead surrounding the wood if they are still there the numbers must be considerable. I cannot of course vouch for the accuracy of the quote from the first book but it does include the words “I could muster my lists out of the rain” which would seem to indicate that a formal record of the burials was created certainly in this case if not for any others. The wood itself did not resemble anything like such a place in the war and old photos show a wilderness of shattered trees and churned-up ground. I am not advocating any attempt to clear the wood of the dead if they are still here but if they are then this must rate as a most unusual case in the story of the post war battlefield clearances.

Regards

Norman

[westkent78]

Very interested in this, as there 'should' be quite a number of 23rd Londons in 4a,4b, 34 c & 34d.

Are there any indications in surviving records as to which cemeteries the bodies found in a specific square were finally collected? I assume most went to London Cemetery & Extension and Warlencourt looking at what I know of the 23rd Londons.

Are there other examples in the body density map where an entire square is left blank?

Norman,

Would it be possible to expand the snapshot a bit to the North, or email me the jpeg you took this cropped image from if I pm you, please?

Matthew

[Seadog]

PM me your email and I will send a copy of the complete image. I have no information as to where the recovered remains ended up.

Norman

PS I think that your GWF mailbox is full

[Petroc]

Ithink Colin's suggestion is quite sensible, also if one considers the probability of tons of partially-buried live ammunition, and perhaps the difficulty associated with disentangling the remains of Allied and German soldiers. As for the memorial idea, Norman, probably beyond the remit of the CWGC ('known to be buried'....exactly who IS known to be buried there? The CWGC have always endeavoured to work within their own very precise guidelines, and rightly so despite criticism during and immediately after the War and still, to an extent, to this day. Besides, were every mass-grave on the old Western Front to command its own commemorative monument to acknowledge the fact........well, it would keep stonemasons in employment for a good few years yet!

Having said that, Norman, for a site as significant as High Wood it WOULD be nice if something could be organised, even a simple plaque on the edge of the wood....

Andy

[westkent78]

Thanks Norman.

[Seadog]

Andy Post 8, would it not be very unusual for mass graves to be prepared and used in the wood without even the Padre making a note of both the location and some record of the number buried plus perhaps any available details of the soldiers interred. What has stimulated my interest is the quote from the book by a man who was there and had an important role to play as the person in charge of the burying party in addition to which he apparently produced “lists” which I can only assume contained details of the operation. It is quite possible that these lists still survive given that similar documentation has surfaced before now.

The interments described in the book quote had taken place after the capture of the wood and I would have thought that there was a good chance that the grave markers may have survived. It is possible that because by 1919 when the battlefields were initially cleared of the recorded dead the wood had recovered to the extent that exhumations were not practical. I finally go back to the numbers where the squares surrounding the wood have a total of over 1,200 burials recorded so the number in the wood could be very large indeed. If this is the case then the fact that there is no memorial to this anywhere in the vicinity of the wood is to my mind an unfortunate oversight.

Regards

Norman

[Seadog]

Our member in post 9 above has kindly sent me this information which I believe is relevant to any burials made in the wood itself as I cannot imagine that no record whatsoever would be prepared and filed by those involved what was a considerable number of interments.:-

"The body density maps were prepared by the Directorate of Graves Registration and Enquires (DGRE) in early 1919. They indicated to the Labour companies, about to start clearance, where bodies were registered as buried according to DGRE records. The blue figures do not contain any numbers from “registered” cemeteries within the square even if that cemetery is due for concentration elsewhere. Unburied bodies and bodies whose temporary burial was not notified to DGRE are not included."

Norman

[garfyboy]

Very Interesting subject, great thread, thanks for posting

Can any body let me have a copy of the Somme body density map or tell me where I could get one please

Andy

[Phil Evans]

Norman,

Unfortunately that appears to be the stock IWGC / CWGC response that I have seen before. I agree, it does not explain the anomaly of Square 4. I am sure that somewhere in the bowels of the CWGC non-public archive there is an answer, by way of a DGRE report or similar.

Is anything of the work Thompson refers to recorded in the 6th Londons war diary, in which he was serving at the time I believe?

Phil

[roel22]

and perhaps the difficulty associated with disentangling the remains of Allied and German soldiers. As for the memorial idea, Norman, probably beyond the remit of the CWGC ('known to be buried'....exactly who IS known to be buried there?

Although I'd support the idea of erecting a monument to the missing, why should it be done by CWGC only? Nearly a century after the war I think it should be a monument about the madness of war, regardless of nationality. The fact that so many Allied and German soldiers lie here makes High Wood a perfect spot for such a memorial.

Roel

[Seadog]

Good point Roel and one I entirely agree with. Phil (post 13) the point about the war diary is very interesting perhaps a member can help with this.

Here is the latest find by Mike (Skipman).

Reverend J. Bickersteth described typical post-traumatic symptomatology in the men carrying out clearing:

It is piteous work this collecting of dead...after three or four days in the forward area too, it tries the nerves and causes a curious kind of irritability which was quite infectious - all the party being cross and out of temper, and it was quite easy to find oneself heatedly arguing some trivial point for no apparent reason. The 1/19th Battalion London Regiment of the 47th Division was used to the clear the battlefield after the successful assault on High Wood on September 15th 1916. Reverend D. Railton, the divisional chaplain noted:

Many men who have stood it all, cannot stand this clearing of the battlefield...no words can tell you all I feel, nor can words tell you of the horrors of clearing a battlefield. This Battalion was left to do that, and several men went off with shell-shock...caused not just by the explosion of a shell nearby, but by the sights and smell and horror of the battlefield in general. I felt dreadful, and had to do my best to keep the men up to the task.

Norman

[Petroc]

A few other ponderables have sprung to mind...for instance, notwithstanding the awful state of the wood following its final capture in 1916, what of the additional destruction wrought upon the place (shelling and fighting during the 1918 offensives, perhaps), which may have disturbed and even nullified the efforts of the earlier registration officer, to say nothing of the digging, salvaging and general disruption caused by the constant passage of a vast body of troops for whom the dead may have been, at that particular moment in time, far less important than the actual practicalities of survival. Then, post-war, who was responsible for battlefield clearance in that particular sector? We may never know the full or actual composition of the unit charged with clearing High Wood and its environs, but even the most dilligent of squads are likely to have encountered the problems already alluded to, with the further complication of what may now be termed looting by either soldiers or civilians. And, of course, not all of these clearance units (despite the thoroughness of the CWGC to which I referred in an earlier post), would have been inclined to follow their instructions to the letter....this might not be a popular theory but, as we all know, not every Tommy wore a halo and wings........

Andy

[Seadog]

But surely any further destruction would have also affected the thousands (on the complete map there are 9,000) recorded burials as well as those made in the wood which I reiterate that from photos taken at the time bears little or no resemblance to a wood whatsoever. Consider as well that we are talking about a very large number of the fallen as I have already said bearing in mind the numbers surrounding the wood and even if these were disturbed by subsequent shelling etc why are there no numbers recorded on the map in the area of the wood. Something just does not seem to add-up here.

Norman

[Tom Tulloch-Marshall]

Although I'd support the idea of erecting a monument to the missing, ...

This function, for the unknown dead of High Wood, is performed by the Thiepval Memorial To The Missing.

Tom

[tim_oz]

Not to throw a spanner into the works but my understanding as to why square 4 was left blank was that there were maps for each of the sub squares. The attached map of which I found some years ago on the web (I unfortunately did not keep a record of where) is for 4c. This certainly shows the wood was mapped.

Tim B

[roel22]

This function, for the unknown dead of High Wood, is performed by the Thiepval Memorial To The Missing.

To the British unknowns, yes. But that's not my point.

Roel

[Seadog]

Not to throw a spanner into the works but my understanding as to why square 4 was left blank was that there were maps for each of the sub squares. The attached map of which I found some years ago on the web (I unfortunately did not keep a record of where) is for 4c. This certainly shows the wood was mapped.

Tim B

Interesting map Tim, thanks for posting. We are still left with the fact that on the BDM no numbers are shown for the wood indicating I believe that it was never cleared for reasons that are not clear at present. However the other aspect to this is that there appears to have been a formal effort to bury many of the fallen as evidenced by the various quotes already posted added to which there must have been a very good chance that the details of these burials were recorded perhaps even to the extent of some of the names and/or rank of those interred. If that is the case then many of these soldiers are not actually "missing" are they?. Perhaps someday a researcher will discover the "lists" as already described but in the meantime it does seem sad that there is no mention of this anywhere near the wood to inform the visitor that what they are looking at is one vast cemetery and the last resting place of many British and German Soldiers who fought and died here. As for the CWGC we have all seen the memorials in the war cemeteries erected in memory of those previously buried in other places but whose graves were lost in subsequent fighting something which would I believe be entirely appropriate at this location.

Regards

Norman

[keithmroberts]

There are surely several other woods on the Somme where body clearance was not a complete success. I am thinking here of Delville Wood, and Thiepval Wood, both of which undoubtedly still hold the undiscovered remains of many casualties. The mystery here is the body clearance map itself and surely the key lies deep in the records of the CWGC. The absence of entries on the map, is surely evidence only that the map was not completed, and does not in itself prove anything about the recovery or otherwise of the fallen from the squares concerned.

The fact that complete squares are blank, which include space on relatively open ground outside the wood makes me doubtful about the absence of any recoveries.

I have just checked Terry Norman's book, and he indeed states on page 238 of my copy "High Wood was never cleared when the Somme Battlefields were methodically combed by military exhumation parties after the Armistice. The thickness of its young and thrusting undergrowth, coupled with the large quantities of live ammunition within its perimeters, made the wood impenetrable for anything beyond a cursory search. It is said that the wood is the final resting place of over 8,000 British and German dead."

Unfortunately his book gives no references, and would not explain the absence of recovery figures for the open space beyond the wood that falls within the squares.

If there was a decision not to search the wood, there will surely be a record of it in the CWGC archives. I can understand that a "cursory" search might have been all that was performed, but in that case surely some bodies would have been found.

High Mood surely does contain the remains of war casualties,as do other woods on the Somme, in whatever numbers, but I do suspect that the absence of the relevant map information may be due to other factors which might be no more than the accidental loss of a folder. I understand that some of the CWGC archive is being digitised; and that may clarify what happened. It would certainly be good to get to the bottom of the issue.

I'm sorry if this seems like a quibble, but by themselves the map, and even Terry Norman's unreferenced words do not amount to evidence that there were no recoveries.

Keith

[towisuk]

I think what might be appropriate in this case is an "Information panel", this would have the dual role of informing the visitor of the fighting in and around High Wood, whilst also explaining that many, many bodies of British and German troops remain scattered within it's confines. And the wood itself can be thought off as a memorial to those that remain resting there for evermore...

regards

Tom

[Seadog]

Agreed Keith there is no substantive evidence right now to prove that the wood was not cleared. The CWGC does state on its website about the London Cemetery that:

The original London Cemetery at High Wood was begun when 47 men of the 47th Division were buried in a large shell hole on 18 and 21 September 1916. Other burials were added later, mainly of officers and men of the 47th Division who died on 15 September 1916, and at the Armistice the cemetery contained 101 graves. The cemetery was then greatly enlarged when remains were brought in from the surrounding battlefields, but the original battlefield cemetery is preserved intact within the larger cemetery; now know as the London Cemetery and Extension.

Therefore it is possible that the quote in post 1 made by the officer in charge of a burial party is referring to the above. However the map of part of the wood in post 19 which is I understand an expansion of the BDM shows many recorded burials which will exclude those mentioned in the CWGC quote. Other Somme woods will of course sadly contain many unrecovered fallen but in this case there may still exist some documentary evidence relating to organized burials excluding those detailed by the CWGC above.

Regards

Norman

PS An excellent suggestion Tom

[keithmroberts]

Its some time since I visited, but presumably London Cemetery which contains over 3,000 unidentified remains from the vicinity and which abuts on High Wood will be getting one of the CWGC information panels as they are rolled out. That would be a sensible location, and maybe might even be worded contain some further information.

Keith

Edited 24 January , 2013 by Keith Roberts
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