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Updated: June 7, 2025
The most important points on the watershed were Mouquet Farm, between Thiepval and Pozières, the Windmill east of the last place, High Wood, and the high ground that lay directly east of Longueval. It was important that the British should capture Guillemont in order to align the next advance with the French forces.
All their hopes were centered at this time on their chief objectives, Guillemont and Pozières. The latter was especially important, for it formed a part of the plateau of Thiepval. If the British succeeded in gaining the crest of the ridge all the country to the east would come under direct observation.
At 6 a. m. on September 15, 1916, the British attacked on a front of about six miles, extending from Bouleaux Wood east of Guillemont to the north of the Albert-Bapaume road. A tremendous bombardment of the enemy positions continued for twenty minutes before the infantry advanced to attack.
General Fanshawe, when addressing the Battalion on the 22nd April, said that he was 'fully satisfied with the effort put forward, and that if it had been possible to reach the objective the Battalion would have done so. Guillemont Farm was taken by the 144th Brigade on 24th April.
Just under the slope where we sat the British guns linked up with the French. To the northward the British were visible right away past Ginchy and Guillemont to Flers and the French clear to the Somme.
On the British side it was the bombardment prior to the attack on Guillemont. The fire was terrific. The terrible concussions of the high explosive shells assailed both ears and nerves, and kept up a pall of dust over the trenches. The whizzing and swirling of the shells was incessant. Some whined, others moaned, and others roared like express trains. Light shells passed with an unearthly shriek.
We marched steadily down the valley through which Judd and Pottinger had passed on their forward-section adventure, skirted the wood that they had assisted the Divisional Infantry to recapture, and halted for further instructions west of a deserted colony of battered Nissen huts, gaping holes and broken bricks shovelled into piles, still entered on the maps as the village of Guillemont.
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.
Two days later the British got into Leuze wood between Guillemont and Combles, and captured Falfemont farm to the south, while a new French army extended the line of battle below Chaulnes and took Chilly and Soyécourt; on the 6th they pushed their advance both north and south of the Somme, taking above the river L'Hôpital farm and Anderlu and Marrières woods, and below it parts of Vermandovillers and Berny.
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.
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