Daylight. Intense bombardment by our own guns. Then we attacked in a smoke cloud reaching the 3^rd German line, where we hung on ‘till the afternoon. ‘B’ Company, who were supposed to follow us up, never got through the barrage. We were gradually driven back by German bombers to their original front line, where we again made a stand until about 8.30 pm. Then, as our flanks had gone, the remnant of the Battalion made the best of their way back over ‘no man’s land’, under a hail of machine gun fire.

On this day 15 Platoon (‘D’ Company) was as follows:-

Of the original fifty-nine members of 15 Platoon, seventeen (in italics) were killed during the attack, only four of whom were recovered for burial in the Gommecourt and Hebuterne cemeteries. The remaining thirteen remain where they fell, and their names are recorded on the memorial at Thiepval. Of the forty-two who survived the day, thirteen (including Lt Smith) went on only to lose their lives during subsequent engagements and, when the war ended, only twenty-nine of the original 15 Platoon who set out together on 1^st July 1916 were still alive.

Despite a preliminary bombardment lasting seven days, the German defences were barely touched and the attack met unexpectedly fierce resistance. Losses were catastrophic and with only minimal advances on the southern flank, the initial attack was a failure. In the following weeks, huge resources of manpower and equipment were deployed in an attempt to exploit the modest successes of the first day. However, the German Army resisted tenaciously and repeated attacks and counter attacks meant a major battle for every village, copse and farmhouse gained. At the end of September, Thiepval was finally captured. The village had been an original objective of 1 July