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Two ladies came to Gommecourt with a key, little thinking that so far from finding a lock they would find not even a door or door-way there was not even a brick wall more than two feet high.
This was one of those projecting fortresses or flankers, like the Leipzig, Ovillers, and Fricourt, with which the enemy studded and strengthened his front line. It is doubtful if any point in the line in France was stronger than this point of Gommecourt. Those who visit it in future times may be surprised that such a place was so strong.
A river so-called, really a brook, the Ancre, runs at the foot of the slope and turns eastward beyond Thiepval, where a ridge called Crucifix Ridge north-east of the village takes its name from a Christ with outstretched arms visible for many miles around. Then on past the bend of the Ancre the British and the German positions continued to the Gommecourt salient.
On the 1st March we moved into the new front line, round the East edge of Gommecourt, while the Boche was still holding Pigeon Wood. The enemy was very alert, as General H.M. Campbell, the C.R.A., discovered; he went into the wood, thinking it unoccupied, and was chased out by a fat Boche throwing "potato mashers."
We only got a few shells from the enemy here, his attention was directed more to the village behind us and Gommecourt Wood in front. On April 1 we got orders to proceed after dark to the front line trenches at Bucquoy A Company was to hold those on the left, with B Company to their right.
Intermittent darkness and flashing so played on the enemy line from Gommecourt to Maricourt that it looked like a reef on a loppy day. For one instant it could be seen as a white rim above the wire, then some comber of a big shell struck it fair and spouted it black aloft.
The weather was bad, but we managed to make all the necessary arrangements and do some attack drill. In the village we had a singular stroke of ill luck. One solitary German Howitzer shell dropped amongst a party of "D" Company, killing Pte. J.T. Allen, who had done good work in the bombing at Gommecourt, and wounding six others, one of whom, W. Clarke, died of wounds afterwards.
Further North, Pigeon Wood and a little salient of trenches called the "Z" were opposite the left of our Divisional front, while in the middle of No Man's Land, which averaged about 400 yards wide, stood the ruins of Gommecourt Sucrerie, twenty yards from the main Foncquevillers-Gommecourt Road. Our trenches were in a somewhat curious condition.
The front between Gommecourt and Frise in the latter part of June was covered in this manner. Covering the road to Péronne south of the river were the One Hundred and Twenty-first Division, the Eleventh Division, and the Thirty-sixth Division belonging to the Seventeenth Danzig Corps.
The positions in front of them were Gommecourt and Beaumont Hamel on the left side of the River Ancre, and Thiepval Wood on the right side of the Ancre leading up to Thiepval Chateau on the crest of the cliff. These were the hardest positions to attack, because of the rising ground and the immense strength of the enemy's earthworks and tunneled defenses.
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