Devonshire Trench Cemetery - Somme

[serreroad]

This may be a stupid question, but it has intruiged me for a while now.

My understanding is that the Devonshires left thir trench (presumably a communication trench by the way it is facing - correct?) at 7.30am on July 1st and were cut down by fire from The Shrine and elsewhere. They were then gathered up soon after and buried in the original trench, hence the poignancy of the cemetery.

Now, considering the attack in this area was successful and the German lines retreated, (allowing the bodies to be collected and buried before they became unrecognisable), why are there several unidentifieds amongst the regiment? Were they so badly mauled that they could not be identified?

Has anyone read the diaries? I would be fascinated to know more.

Thanks

Mike

[Jon Miller]

I, too am interested in the action of the Devonshires on 1 July, but as yet have not studied things in fine detail. However, a couple bits of info have come my way which may help you consider what happened. Although it takes away some of the 'romance' of the legend, although the Devons did hold this particular trench in the days and weeks running up to the attack, as far as I can tell, it was abandoned as being too dangerous in the immediate advent of 1 July. Both the 8th and 9th Bns started off from trenches farther back; if you are familiar with the area, somewhere roughly parallel to where the Gordons' Cem is now. The 9th, leading the attack were unmolested until negotiating their way around Mansell Copse (the site of the Devon Cem) when they were torn apart by machine gun fire, notably from the direction of Metz Churchyard.

I am quite prepared for another pal to contradict me on any of this, I'm on a learning curve as well. This is just how things seem to have come together thus far.

As for the annhilation of soldiers, a very interesting point came up in a recent thread about the effect of bullets etc on the body. It was that if you were the first soldier to meet machine gun fire in an attack, it was quite within the bounds of possiblity that you could be disfigured beyond recognition. I've no knowledge of firing a machine gun, but I guess the gunner would keep his aim on his first target until he could definitely tell that he'd got the range, so the unfortunate target would end up getting far more than his necessary quota of bullets. This is pure speculation on my part, other pals may well again have a far more reasoned analysis.

[serreroad]

Thanks Jon. As you say it casts doubt over the accuracy of the myth, though in no way detracts from the heroism of the action.

You say you think they advanced from somewhere parallel to where the Gordons' Cem is now. Do you mean parallel with the road or parallel with the front line? I am pretty familiar with the whole area and it would be v interesting to place the start of the attack on the map and on the ground. I have always assumed they were cut down as they emerged from the Copse, since the steep valley presents an easy shot from The Shrine. Is that your understanding?

Gordons' Cem, incidentally, always strikes me as a very underrated cem. Coachloads of visitors disgorge at Devonshire Trench but very few bother to cross the road to see the poor Gordons, as the respective visitors books prove.

Anyway, back to your point on the damage caused by mg fire. I fully accept that the recovered bodies might be unrecognisable under those circumstances, but I am still surprised that mg fire alone should be responsible, leaving no distinguishing marks, dog tags, personal papers, etc. If they were subject to shellfire then that is a different matter, but I was not aware that they were. I have yet to read the Battleground Europe book for Fricourt/Mametz - maybe that provides some pointers?

Cheers

Mike

[PhilB]

They could possibly be bodies brought in later, having been exposed for a long time and recognizable only as Devons? Phil B

[BeppoSapone]

Anyway, back to your point on the damage caused by mg fire. I fully accept that the recovered bodies might be unrecognisable under those circumstances, but I am still surprised that mg fire alone should be responsible, leaving no distinguishing marks, dog tags, personal papers, etc. If they were subject to shellfire then that is a different matter, but I was not aware that they were. I have yet to read the Battleground Europe book for Fricourt/Mametz - maybe that provides some pointers?

Cheers

Mike

At this time they only had a single dog tag, the round one. If this was removed for records it could be very difficult to identify a soldier when it came time to bury him.

It was probably because of the vast losses on the Somme , and the vast numbers of "unknown" dead that a second identity disc was introduced in November 1916.

The second, green disc, was supposed to remain with the body after the round red disc was removed.

[serreroad]

I suspect the dog tag explanation is closer to the truth - I had no idea about the 2nd tag info - many thanks.

My problem with Phil B's answer is that the bodies "shouldn't" have laid out in the open for very long, since there was a rapid breakthrough in this area and the dead would have been recovered very quickly.

According to the silentcities website: "It was there, on 4 July, that they buried their dead in a section of their old front line trench. All but two of the burials belong to these battalions."

That quote (presumably taken from the CWGC registers) also refers to the buriel trench as being "old front line". However, as I stated in an earlier post it seems to me to face the wrong way and my assumption has always been that it was in fact a communication trench? Any thoughts?

Mike

[serreroad]

Actually, having just returned to the silencities site and read the wording applied to the memorial at the time, I may have answered my own question.

The original inscription makes no reference to "front line". It refers to a "forward trench", which could presumably simply refer to the Devonshires' own forward assembly trench, behind the front line?

Quote:

The Devonshires Held This Trench

The Devonshires Hold It Still

1st July 1916

The 8th and 9th Devons

Suffered Very Heavy Casualties

As They Left Their Forward

Trench to Attack

Later That Day

The Survivors Buried Their Fallen

Comrades In That Same Trench

And Erected A Wooden Memorial

With The Words Which Are

Carved In The Cross Above

Perhaps the CWGC got a little over-zealous with the the myth and changed "forward trench" to "old front line trench" at some point in the past??

Mike

[Tom Morgan]

I don't know for sure whether this happened to the Devonshires, but....

When the attack began, the Germans would have called up artillery support and their guns would have shelled no-Man's Land and the British front line area, to hinder the progress of reinforcements. The fall of shells could have buried some bodies, mangled some beyond recognition and completely atomised others.

So when the time came to bury the dead, it is possible that not all of the dead could be found, and there could have been difficulty in identifying some of those who were found.

Could this be an explanation?

Tom

[ianw]

Yes, Tom, it is certainly my understanding that no mans land was plastered with shell fire/mortar fire if the topography allowed ,throughout the entirety of July 1st - the aim both being initially to annihilate the attackers and then subsequently prevent reinforcement and materials being brought up - so unidentifiable bodies would certainly exist but be easily linked to the Devonshires attack. I also would agree that it is likely that a man could be made unidentiable by weight of machine gun fire.

[serreroad]

Thanks folks. Its that myth again, that they were cut down by mg fire from the shrine. I am probably not alone therfore in creating a mental picture of the events which puts too much focus on the mg post. If the area was also subject to shellfire then this makes the number of unidentifieds far more understandable. Thanks.

Mike

[Mat McLachlan]

I agree Tom - it's highly likely that the bodies of some of the men killed in the attack (by MG fire) were later hit by shellfire whilst lying in no-man's land and rendered unidentifiable. Even if they were buried on July 4th, three days was still a long time on the Western Front.

[Simon R]

I agree, and would add that there were probably RA forward observation officers involved too - could they be unidentified? Or at least not identified with the btn.?

[serreroad]

Very intersting observation Simon. There are 2 x RFA buried alongside the Devonshires. Thanks for that added insight.

Mike

[Paul Reed]

I agree, and would add that there were probably RA forward observation officers involved too - could they be unidentified? Or at least not identified with the btn.?

I have never come across any evidence that RFA FOOs went over with the infantry on 1st July 1916; why would they, when the barrage was cast in stone? Their role was largely in the forward OPs, to correct any fire that was going on. At this stage in the Somme they did not liase much with infantry units; something that came out of the debacle of that day.

The RFA burials in this cemetery date from a later period, and were buried apart from the Devons.

[serreroad]

Thanks Paul. They are certainly buried away from the Devonshires. I was going to check the headstone dates on my next visit.

Thanks

Mike

[Tom Morgan]

RA graves in the Devonshire Cemetery - the one nearest the gate is Driver Lambert, killed February 1917. The other is Sgt. Wright, was was killed in November 1916.

Tom

[Ralph J. Whitehead]

I am currently looking at the German side of the action at Mametz as well as Montauban, concentrating on the 109th RIR and 6th Bavarian RIR, both of which suffered very heavy losses on 1 July.

As part of my research I have been looking at the regimental records, the German accounts of the battle as well as the artillery support provided by German batteries located in the rear.

While not completed yet there have been some interesting points brought up regarding the question of German artillery fire and machine gun fire.

First, many of the German batteries had suffered considerable losses in the week long bombardment from 24 June - 30 June. The batteries that survived, or in most cases the individual guns were not in the position to provide an intense barrage fire in no man's land as was supplied by the guns of the 26th Reserve Division further to the north.

Some artillery fire still fell and caused losses but from what I have seen the majority of the British losses can be attributed to pockets of resistance centered on machine guns from the regimental machine gun company of the 109th RIR near Mametz as well as supportong Machine Gun Marksman Detachments and Musketen detachments (Automatic rifles).

Several machine guns from Marksman Detachment 132 defended mametz as well as 4 musketen, 2 being placed south of the village, 2 along the trench on the eastern side of the village. The Musketen were placed in pairs, allowing one gun to fire while the other cooled off, the guns being prone to overheating.

The first line trenches were overrun quickly in many places due to a variety of issues that I will discuss further when my research is completed. However, the secondary trench known as the Bismarck Graben (Danzig trench) and trenches in this vicinity that would include the shrine held up further advances with heavy infantry and machine gun fire.

The losses suffered by the Devons were probably a direct reult of machine gun fire as opposed to artillery fire in what I have read so far. I hope to have the research completed int he next few weeks and will post my findings on the forum and see what comments it receives.

I love threads like this, a chance to hear both sides and get some talking going, keep it up, please,

Ralph

[Jon Miller]

With reference to my statement that the Devons started off parallel to the Gordons Cem, I meant parallel on the other side of the road, so basically they advanced from directly behind Mansell Copse with the road to their immediate right, and were left alone until they had to negotiate the wood. I am not yet satisfied with how they did this. I lean towards the battalion splitting and either going slightly higher and to the left of the copse as they would have seen it, or lower round the bottom of the wood to the right, even going on to the road. It was the companies, mainly A Coy I believe, that were the worst sufferers from the machine guns; those on the left flank, didn't go on unscathed, but did far better. Some mention is made of soldiers going through the copse as well, so it could be all three. However the latter seems an unenviable route bearing in mind the copse, the trench, and the drop immediately beyond, which I'm presuming was a feature of the land back in those days.

As regarding the trench being front line or not, having looked at a map printed in Battleground Europe I think it was, whilst in Mansell Copse, the front trench actually turned in a 90 degree angle, and did for a short distance lead away from the front line, before turning again to run parallel to No Man's Land. It is in this piece of trench, end on to the front line, that was used for the burials. So it was a piece of front line trench used for the burials, but the Devons didn't actually use it on the morning of the attack. That's how things appear to me, anyhow.

Out of about 140 odd burials in the cemetery, only 10 are unidentified, which is hardly a huge percentage. Having spoken to other people, various theories have been put forward. Someone, perhaps sent to retrieve a body, rather than dragging the body back, putting himself at risk, removes the identity disc. Consequently, when the body is retrieved on the fourth, he might be recognisable, but without his dogtag, and perhaps none of the burial party sure of his identity, he'd be un=named. Even in as little as three days, maggots and such like could have got to work. Shell-fire destroying bodies, I would have thought to be unlikely, as even as soon as midday perhaps, the action had left the immediate vicinity of Mansell Copse. A shell hitting the area would have to be a fairly bad stray.

All in all, I feel sure that the effectiveness of the machine-guns at or near the Shrine is a solid base to discovering the truth as to what happened in that sector of the offensive.

[Paul Reed]

As regarding the trench being front line or not, having looked at a map printed in Battleground Europe I think it was, ...

From memory, the trench in which these men were buried wasn't a front line one. I have a copy of a sketch map of these positions, and if I can find it, I will post it.

[serreroad]

The plot thickens.....

I too have now read the Battleground Europe account and studied the relevant trench maps and I would now agree with Jon above that this WAS a frontline trench. The confusion comes because the burial trench lies at 90 degrees to the frontline, but according to the trenchmaps the frontline curved around the rear of the copse, so that a short stretch of it did lie at right angles to the direction of attack.

As soon as you leave the confines of the wood, be it to the north, the south, or straight through the middle, there is absolutely no protection from the German positions around the Shrine. I had always assumed that they were cut down crossing the valley to the north of the main road (the valley containing the old Bray road), but if the right hand flanks got hit hardest it would appear that more damage was done in the valley bottom along the main road?

The dog-tag retrieval idea appeals if the men were indeed buried 3 days later, although there remains some confusion about the timing of the burials. I have read various accounts which seem to imply that the men were buried 3 days later, but the memorial at the cemetery itself clearly states "Later that day the survivors buried by their comrades in that same trench." Has anyone any definitive info on this issue?

Finally, there is Ralph's German view of the situation which promises some fascinating insights - any updates available?

Thanks to all for your contributions.

Mike

[serreroad]

Sorry - just realised I didn't reply to Paul's point re this NOT being a frontline position. Did you manage to find the sketch map?