Plan of attack at Gommecourt

The Plan of Attack at Gommecourt

Outline	The role of the RFC
Infantry	The Flaws
The Artillery

Outline

VII Corps' staff decided that the best plan of attack at Gommecourt was to avoid assaulting the heavily defended Park and village directly but, instead, to use a pincer movement to cut them off. A new front line would then be created by reversing German trenches and fortifying communication trenches (see map, left, for details). Strongpoints would be constructed at key points. Meanwhile, those German soldiers surrounded in the Park or village would be given the chance to surrender. If they failed to do this then they would be attacked by reserve companies brought across specifically for this purpose.

Infantry

The idea was that the two attacking divisions would use two brigade for the attack, each with two battalions attacking side by side. The third battalion would be used as a reserve and the fourth was given tasks such as trench digging and used for carrying parties.

From south to the north the attacking brigades and battalions were:

46th (North Midland) Division
    139th Brigade
        1/7th Sherwood Foresters
        1/5th Sherwood Foresters
    137th Brigade
        1/6th North Staffordshire Regt
        1/6th South Staffordshire Regt

56th (1st London) Division
    169th Brigade
        1/5th London Regt (London Rifle Brigade)
        1/9th London Regt (Queen Victoria's Rifles)
    168th Brigade
        1/12th London Regt (The Rangers)
        1/14th London Regt (London Scottish)

On the 56th Division's front, the 1/16th London Regt (Queen's Westminster Rifles) were to push through after the initial attack and meet up with the Sherwood Foresters in a German strongpoint called the Quadrilateral (see map opposite). This task was to be completed by 10.30am so that the clearing of the village and Park could begin. B Company, London Rifle Brigade were given this task

The Artillery

The siege and heavy batteries of VII Corps (go here for details) were given various tasks:

the heavy howitzers were to reduce various strongpoints in the German lines such as the Park, the Kern Redoubt (the centre of Gommecourt village), the Maze, Point 94, Nameless Farm, the Farmer-Farmyard strongpoint (56th Division); and the Z and Little Z (46th Division); and
The longer guns (60pdrs, 6" and 9.2") were to bombard villages and roads and were also used for counter-battery fire (along with some of the heavy howitzers and some field howitzers)

The field artillery of the two divisions (go here for details) were used to:

cutting the German wire in front of the first and second lines of trenches (18 pdrs only);
bombarding communication trenches to prevent reinforcements and supplies from reaching the front line troops;
joining the bombardment of rear villages in several short 'hurricane' bombardments; and
some of the 4.5" howitzers helped with counter-battery fire.

On Z Day, the day of the attack, they worked to a programme of timed 'lifts' which moved away from the German front lines as they were occupied according to the timetable worked out the VII Corps staff. As was found elsewhere on 1st July, bringing the artillery back to help the men whose attack had stalled proved immensely difficult and, with the smoke and confusion, knowing which areas were occupied by British or German troops proved very difficult.

The role of the RFC

During the bombardment and on Z Day, air support was provided by No. 8 Squadron, part of the 12th (Corps) Wing, III Brigade, RFC based at La Bellevue, just to the north of the Arras to Doullens Road. At this time, the RFC had air superiority and the BE2cs of No. 8 Squadron were able to fly, sometimes at very low levels, over the German lines almost with impunity.

These aircraft were to maintain contact with the artillery in order to correct the accuracy of their fire and to spot targets, especially artillery positions. Communication was either by wireless or by dropping messages at pre-arranged spots for onward transmission.

Unfortunately, the weather for the first five days of the bombardment was poor and the RFC were unable to spot accurately or, sometimes, at all. As a result, a lot of firing was done 'blind' using map co-ordinates but, with the science of accurate artillery fire very much in its infancy, such firing could be wildly inaccurate.

Z Day itself was a fine sunny day but, almost alone on the Somme that day, the 56th Division used a very dense and prolonged smoke screen which drifted very slowly across the whole battlefield making visibility of either the trenches or the rear German areas very difficult. As a result, spotting the German guns was inadequate and the gunners had very little to go on when they tried to support the infantry in the German trenches.

The Flaws

The flaws in VII Corps plan were numerous:

It depended on a perfect artillery preparation which had killed or demoralised the majority of the defenders;
It depended on two independent units meeting exacting timetables to reach the same objective more or less simultaneously;
It depended on the attacking troops being able to be re-supplied and reinforced without interruption by the enemy;
It depended on the artillery being able to suppress any opposing artillery with accurate counter-battery fire and good RFC spotting of new German battery positions;
It depended on the Germans not behaving 'unpredictably';.and
It meant that, were one attack to fail and the other to succeed, then extricating the successful troops would prove very difficult.

Tragically for the men involved, every single flaw in VII Corps' plan was exposed:

the artillery plan did not work;
the timetables were not met (by the 46th Division);
it proved impossible to re-supply and reinforce;
counter-battery fire was lamentable;
the Germans were 'unreasonable' in their unpredictability (concealing and not using many batteries until the attack started); and
although fighting heroically for over twelve hours much of the 56th Division was left dead, wounded or prisoners of war in the German trenches although it was clear the overall attack had failed and the main attacks to the south at Serre and Beaumont Hamel had failed too.

Back to The Plan or Home

The map shows the outline plan of attack drawn up by VII Corps.
The 46th Division was to take the first two lines of trenches in one rush, then consolidate before sending support troops towards the Quadrilateral to meet the Queen's Westminsters.
The 56th Division had to take three lines of trenches at which point the Queen's Westminsters would push through to take the Quadrilateral.
As an indication of how little resistance VII Corps staff expected, two battalions were given the task of digging several communication trenches across No Man's Land while the attacking was in progress, i.e. several hundred men were expected to stand out in full view of the enemy machine guns digging trenches 2-400 yards long!
Whilst this was going on, men of the 1/5th Cheshire Regt., the divisional pioneers, with men from the Royal Engineer Field Companies were to reverse German trenches, create stronpoints for Vickers machine guns and Lewis guns, and to create a new front line made up of German communication trenches and some of those dug across No Man's Land.