Free Forgotten Voices of the Somme by Joshua Levine Page B

York and Lancaster Regiment
    We didn't know about the attack until the day before. We went into the line that night, and we relieved the regiment that was in. By now, everybody knew we were going in to attack, and we all had our big overcoats, and our haversacks with rations in. I had my rifle, and a telephone, and a mile of wire as well. Other people were carrying wire cutters and digging equipment. Actually, I wasn't meant to go over, but one man, a university student, got shell shock , and he dropped out on the way into the line. So I was detailed to take his place. I was supposed to reach the German lines, and go through there into Serre village.
    The signal to attack was a whistle. The officers were the first to jump up – and they only had revolvers. We had a creeping barrage that was supposed to be creeping forward as we moved forward. The first line went, and then they all lay down. I thought they must have had different orders to us – we'd been
    told to walk. But the reason they lay down was because they'd been shot. They were mown down like corn. Then we went forward – and the same thing happened. I didn't know what was happening around me. There were gaps in our wire, where it had been cut, that were marked by white tape on the ground. We were told to walk and to carry the rifle at high port, but I was just trying to find my way through the shell-holes. I didn't get as far as the British wire. There was so much pandemonium. I lay down, but soon we all got orders to get back to our trenches.
    Private Frank Lindlay
    14th Battalion, York and Lancaster Regiment
    At the start, we were lined up ready to go over, at the whistle, at half seven. A huge mine went off to the right. It went off too soon, and it gave the Germans a chance to come up out of their deep dugouts and concentrate on us. I think they were very surprised to see us walking. In our orders, we had to walk across. We had been led to believe by 'higher-ups' that the big bombardment, over the days and nights, had obliterated the enemy. But we knew it hadn't because their positions were so strong. Their dugouts were way down under the parapets of the trenches, and they couldn't be reached by artillery fire. All they did was to wait down there until our barrage lifted, and then they came up to have some target practice at us. We were held up by huge coils of barbed wire, and in the odd gap that we made for, we were greeted by their heavy machine guns. There was no question that we could get through to them. Whole lines of our lads were mown down one after the other, and we were shifting from shell-hole to shell-hole, trying to pick one or two Germans off their front line.
    Private Arthur Pearson
    15th Battalion, West Yorkshire Regiment
    At zero hour, everybody climbed out of the trenches. Two platoons formed the first wave. Every man climbed out of the trench at the officers' whistles, and not a man hesitated. I was lucky; I was at a part of the trench where the parapet had been battered down, and when I ran out of the trench, I was under the hail of bullets that were whizzing over my head. Most of our fellows were killed, kneeling on the parapet. There was nobody coming forward with me – only one man – and the reserves had been shelled in our lines and blown to smithereens.
    Private Ralph Miller
    1/8th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment
    We got to the point that we thought the quicker the bloody whistles go, the sooner we go over the top, the better. We always said to one another, 'Well, it's a two-to-one chance. We either get bowled over, or we get wounded and go home. It's one of the two.' We got so browned off with the waiting. To the extent that you didn't care what happened. In fact, I was pleased to go over – I wanted a Blighty wound . You can just imagine, there were hundreds of fellows, shouting and swearing, going over with fixed bayonets. We had no chance of getting across no-man's-land, there was so much barbed wire. Of my football