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On September 9, 1916, British forces advancing on a front of 6,000 yards occupied Falfemont Farm, Leuze Wood, Guillemont, and Ginchy, the area gained being more than four square miles. The bravery displayed by the Irish troops from Connaught, Leinster, and Munster in connection with the capture of Guillemont was especially commended by headquarters.
In this way Guillemont and Ginchy fell, so that in the first place hardly a man out of two thousand men escaped to tell the tale of horror in German lines, and in the second place there was no long fight against the Irish, who stormed it in a wild, fierce rush which even machine-guns could not check.
Once they sent out a charge with the bayonet to meet a British charge between walls of shell fire and there through the mist the steel was seen flashing and vague figures wrestling. Guillemont and the farms won and Ginchy which lay beyond won and the British had their flank on high ground. Twice they were in Guillemont but could not remain, though as usual they kept some of their gains.
I noticed there were one or two points which he "strafed" methodically, therefore I judged it safe to make direct for my point over the top, then enter a communication trench just on this side of the ridge. By this time my guide came up, so sharing my apparatus, we started off. The distance to Ginchy Telegraph was about one kilometre.
He was determined to associate his name indelibly with the field of Ypres; he was determined to win the highest possible decoration on July 31: he knew what the risks were; he had seen enough of war to know what a modern push meant; he had not come through Guillemont and Ginchy for nothing and learnt nothing; he was determined to stake life and limbs and everything on the attainment of his ambition.
And Liberty is she who sang her songs of old, and is fair as she ever was, when men see her in visions, at night in No Man's Land when they have the strength to crawl in: still she walks of a night in Pozières and in Ginchy.
That effort on our right was, however, hampered by the Germans in the Quadrilateral and Bouleaux wood to the east of Ginchy, and the Guards were unable to carry out the most important tactical part of the day's work by carrying Lesboeufs and Morval. The French had no such accumulation of gains on the 15th, but they conquered a larger area between the 13th and 18th.
It was long before he lost hope of keeping the division together, though it was hard to get recruits and losses were high at Guillemont and Ginchy. For the first time he lost heart and was very sad when the division was cut to pieces in a Flanders battle.
Courcelette fell to the Canadians, Martinpuich to the Scots, Flers to the New Zealanders. High wood was at last enveloped in this advance, and Delville wood passed by the division of the New Army which pushed from Ginchy towards Lesboeufs.
The purpose was to use them for an attack on Ginchy; but a shift of arrangements brought the 47th Brigade into line against Guillemont and its quarries, which had on six occasions been unsuccessfully attacked. The Irish carried them. Three days later the whole division was launched against Ginchy. They equalled the Ulstermen's valour, and were luckier in the result.
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