Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 19, 2025
The British on the first day won the outskirts and carried all the intrenchments before them, but had not gained control of the ruins, though a part of a brigade had actually entered La Boiselle and held a portion of the place.
To complete the operation of cutting off Fricourt it was necessary to carry Mametz on the south; this accomplished, the forces would unite in the north at La Boiselle and Ovillers and, following the long depression popularly known as Sausage Valley toward Contalmaison, would be able to squeeze Fricourt so hard that it must be abandoned by the enemy. The British plans worked out successfully.
And, though we watched them for an hour, they were still there motionless at the end of it. For thirty minutes batches continued to come up. We could see them building up a line a little farther up the hill, where another bank gave cover. Then movement stopped and our heavy shell-bursts in La Boiselle began again. The whole affair was being repeated a step farther forward.
The last we saw was the men leaping over the bank and down into the space between them and the village. This morning we went to the same view point. The firing had gone well beyond Fricourt Wood. They were German shells which were now falling on the smoking site of La Boiselle. On the white bank there still lay twelve dark figures. France, July 3rd.
The mine craters in the white chalk of La Boiselle are big enough to hide a large church. But for sheer desolation it will not compare with Pozières. On the top of a gently rising hill, over which the Roman road ran as is the way with Roman roads, was a pretty village, with its church, its cemetery under the shady trees; its orchards and picturesque village houses.
"Yes," nodded K., lighting another cigarette, "I've been listening to them for the last hour." Here my friend F., who happened to be the Intelligence Officer in charge, leaned forward to say: "I'm afraid we can't get into Beaumont Hamel, the Boches are strafing it rather, this morning, but we'll go as near as we can get, and then on to what was La Boiselle.
Beside one such unlovely dump our car pulled up, and F., gloved finger pointing, announced: "The Church of La Boiselle. That heap you see yonder was once the Mairie, and beyond, the schoolhouse. The others were houses and cottages. Oh, La Boiselle was quite a pretty place once. We get out here to visit the guns this way."
It had been fairly obvious for some time that La Boiselle was about to be attacked. While the rest of the landscape before us was only treated to an occasional shell-burst, heavy explosions had been taking place in this clump of ruins.
Our shell-bursts had gone much farther up the hill one realised that; and heavy black clouds were spurting into the air below Boiselle, just behind the hill's shoulder. The crash, crash, crash, crash of four heavy shells, one following another almost as quickly as you would read the words, focused all one's attention on that point. The fire on it was growing.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking