The 4/5th Black Watch, 14 October 1916, and a lost cemetery at Thiepval

This article has been developed from my study of 3505 Hugh Dingwall. He had enlisted at the age of 17 in November 1914 and went to France with the battalion in February 1915. It became evident that he had enlisted under age and he was found out, for he was returned home and only rejoined the battalion in the November. He served for almost a year before he lost his life in events described below. I researched him for a private client in 2016.

On 29 February 1916 (for it was a Leap Year), the battalion was transferred into the 118th Infantry Brigade of 39th Division, a formation of Lord Kitchener’s New Armies that had been raised in late 1914 and early 1915. The division was just in the process of landing in France, and the addition of the Dundee battalion was to take the place of a unit that was behind in its training and left in England. On 15 March 1916 the battalion merged with the 1/5th to become the 4/5th Battalion.

Events: background

The 39th Division moved to the Somme during the great battle that had commenced on 1 July 1916 but only became significantly engaged in latter stages. The first operation of significance since the move came on 3 September 1916, when the battalion took part in a successful if rather costly attack near Hamel on the River Ancre. It then spent time in the trenches of the Beaumont Hamel area, west of the Ancre, before it received orders for an attack on the formidable German defences known to the British as the Schwaben Redoubt.

Part of a map from the British Official History of Military Operations, showing the northern part of the Western Front just before the Battle of the Somme began on 1 July 1916. Red lines show British positions; blue are French; brown are Belgian. Opposite them (green) are German forces. The offsenive was undertaken by the British Fourth and the French Sixth Armies. My arrow shows the approximate position of the Schwaben Redoubt.
A present-day map of the area of relevance. Thiepval lies to the north of Albert, on a dominant ridge that rises from the eastern bank of the River Ancre. It played a key part in the defeat of the initial British attack on 1 July 1916 and was the scene of much costly effort to capture it. The ridge was finally in British hands on 27 September 1916 and attention turned to clearing the eastern bank of the Ancre: in this area lay the defences of the Schwaben Redoubt.
Official History, showing the area north and north west of Thiepval during the first day of the Battle of the Somme on 1 July 1916. Red lines show British positions; opposite them (green) are German. As yet, the 39th Division was many miles away to the north, in French Flanders. The Schwaben Redoubt was attacked on this day by the 36th (Ulster) Division. It succeeded in penetrating into the redoubt but successive waves of men that came up through Thiepval Wood and into teh open no man’s land were cut down by heavy fire coming from Thiepval, and ultimately the Ulstermen were forced to withdraw. The redoubt was only attacked again in early October, after Thiepval and most of the ridge on which it stands had been captured.
Same source. During operations on 26 September 1916, the village of Thiepval (by now a wilderness of ruins) was captured by the 18th (Eastern) Division and the British reached the line shown by hollow red circles. The Schwaben Redoubt now lay directly ahead and blocking the way to a further advance on St Pierre Divion and Grandcourt. 39th Division had arrived in the Somme area on 26 August and taken part in operations near Hamel (on the west side of the Ancre not far from St Pierre Divion) on 3 September.

Events/: 14 October 1916

The battalion’s diary includes an excellent narrative of the attack and also this map. As a point of reference I have circled the eventual site of “Thiepval Village Cemetery”. It was within the area where the battalion assembled ready for its attack on 14 October 1916, the immediate objective of which was the trench running west-east, through points 39, 49, 69, 99, etc. Casualties came at first from the battalion advancing too quickly and running into the creeping barrage that was being laid down in front of it and in some places falling short (especially around point 27); further losses came from enemy fire coming from hostile shellfire, also around Point 27.
This grid map was produced with trenches accurate to 17 February 1917. My red flag (using Linesman) marks the location of “Thiepval Village Cemetery”, which it would appear did not yet exist at that time. It lies within a trench system, part of the redoubt. By 1917 the entire area was in British hands and the fighting front was several miles away. For reference I have also circled point 27.
“The Courier” (Dundee) of Monday 30 October 1916 listed Hugh as missing in action. (British Newspaper Archive).

Missing in action

It is apparent that there was uncertainty about Hugh at the time. He was initially declared as missing in action (listed as such in the “Dundee Courier” of 30 October 1916) and this was communicated to his family. By 15 November 1916 some additional information had emerged, almost certainly from a comrade who had witnessed the events, and the listing amended to “wounded and missing in action”.

Official enquiries made when a man was missing included exchange of information with Germany in order to ascertain whether the man was a prisoner of war or could be confirmed dead. There is no sign that any information came that way. The Red Cross, which handled private enquiries, has an index card which suggests that the family sought information, but it is marked as negative. This must have been a deeply worrying time for Hugh’s family.

A 1917 painting by official war artist William Orpen, which is now in the hands of the Imperial War Museum. It is said to be of the site of the Schwaben Redoubt. One can only imagine the task of the battlefield clearance parties, looking for graves and remains of men in such shattered territory.

In March 1917 all men serving in Territorial Force infantry units were renumbered: Hugh now became 200782 as he could not yet be definitely considered dead.

It was not until 28 August 1917 that the “Dundee Courier” published news that Hugh was now known to have been killed. The official War Office list of 12 September 1917 included Hugh in a list of men “previously reported wounded and missing, now reported killed”. He had, somehow, been found.

British Newspaper Archive.

We must now jump forward in time to a date in 1919, when soldiers of 148 Labour Company of the Labour Corps exhumed the remains of 215 men who had been buried in “Thiepval Village Cemetery” and took them for reburial in “Connaught Military Cemetery”. This was part of a widespread programme of battlefield clearance and removal of many small cemeteries and plots, and the remains being concentrated into fewer, larger cemeteries that would be made permanent. Hugh Dingwall is one of the 24 officers and men of this battalion, all said to have been killed on 14 October 1916, who were among the 215 reburials.

Commonwealth War Graves Commission: the exhumation and reburial report.
On this map I have marked the locations of “Thiepval Village Cemetery” (R.19.d.6.7, red flag: it is interesting to see a small track leading to this position on this map of November 1916); “Mill Road Cemetery” (uppermost of the yellow crosses, created within the site of the Schwaben Redoubt) and “Connaught Military Cemetery” (lower of the yellow crosses, alongside the sunken Thiepval Road) and of course where Hugh Dingwall now lies).

There is very little public information about the original creation of “Thiepval Village Cemetery” (although it is possible that the archives of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission may have some details). A reading of the reburial lists and analysis of who these men were shows that almost all of them had initially been declared as missing in action in the Schwaben Redoubt –Thiepval area. It appears to me that the men were found on the battlefield in perhaps July or August 1917 and taken for burial in “Thiepval Village Cemetery”. By this time, the fighting front had moved many miles eastwards of the 1916 Somme sector, where things were now quiet. Several cemeteries that exist today, particularly north of the Schwaben Redoubt, were created in battlefield clearance work of this period. It is evident that many of the bodies found could not be identified: they had after all been lying out in the battlefield for some nine months, and with the Schwaben Redoubt –Thiepval area having been under shell fire for several weeks after the fighting of October 1916 one can only imagine the destruction of the battlefield and shallow graves that some of these man may have occupied before they were found in the summer of 1917.

The Dingwall family were almost certainly informed of his burial in “Thiepval Village Cemetery” and the later the move to “Connaught Military Cemetery”.

The Thiepval area today. My red flag marks “Thiepval Village Cemetery”, of which there is no trace and the site is now within farmland. The track (dashed lines) shown approaches quite close it.
“Mill Road” and “Connaught” Military Cemeteries can be seen, and near to them is the Ulster Tower. This is a memorial site to the 36th (Ulster) Division and includes a tearoom and facilities for visitors.
Thiepval itself was never fully reconstructed (in particular, its magnificent former chateau has completely disappeared), although it had a church and a few houses. There is a memorial to the 18th (Eastern) Division (arrowed) and the huge and impressive Thiepval Memorial, which lists all of the British officers and men of the battle who have no known grave today. They include 32 of Hugh’s comrades who lost their lives of 14 October 1916, some of whome may be buried in the cemeteries as unknown soldiers.
My photograph taken from the heights near Thiepval, showing the area over which the Ulster Division advanced (going left to right) on 1 July 1916. “Connaught Cemetery” lies on the front line from which the 9th Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers advanced on that day. “Mill Road Cemetery” is on the site of the Schwaben Redoubt, which also extended towards the right of the photograph. The Ulster Tower, a memorial to the 36th (Ulster) Division, is a copy of a tower at Clandeboye in County Down, in whose shadow some of the Irish battalions had trained before going to England in 1915. There is no memorial to the 39th Division and nothing to indicate that “Thiepval Village Cemetery” ever existed.
In my photograph, we are standing in Connaught Military Cemetery and looking towards the rebuilt Thiepval. The village can be seen on the skyline, beyond the pillars of the cemetery gate. A CWGC sign points along the track to “Mill Road Cemetery”. The area on the skyline to the left of Thiepval was where Hugh Dingwall and his comrades went into action on 14 October 1916.
Connaught Military Cemetery today. Hugh lies in Plot X, row F, grave 3. This photograph was taken during a private tour that I conducted for an Australian client, who became my friend, Keith Iles. He can be seen in this image, and by coincidence is standing immediately behind Hugh’s grave (which I have circled). When the cemeteries were permanently constructed after the war, the original wooden crosses were replaced by the white Portland headstones. The next of kin were given the opportunity to add a personal inscription: Hugh’s mother added the inscription “Awaiting the Lord’s command”.

Links

Black Watch (Royal Highlanders)

39th Division