A history of the Division would hardly be complete without a short reference to "The Admiral." Many of those who knew and liked him well by that name probably never knew him by any other. Lieut. Smith was an owner driver in charge of a convoy of 'buses with the Royal Naval Division at Antwerp, whence he escaped to France. In October 1914 he seized the opportunity of an officer requiring to be taken up to join his unit, to make his way with his car to the front. Arrived there he contrived to get himself attached to the 6th Division Headquarters, remaining with them until he was reported missing on the 10th June 1916. Consumed with a good healthy hatred of the enemy, and keen to be of assistance in any way that he could, he devoted the greater part of the time he was with the Division to experimenting with bullet-proof shields on wheels to be propelled by manpower, a sort of embryonic tank. His ambition was himself to take the first of these into action. At last he was offered an opportunity of co-operating with a small 3-man pattern in a minor raid near Forward Cottage. What success he might have achieved it is impossible to say, as in his eagerness he preceded the shield by several yards to show the crew the way and was hit in the neck by a splinter from a bomb. The name of Admiral's Road, given to the road past Crossroads Farm and Forward Cottage, commemorates the incident of which it was the scene. Later "The Admiral" turned his attention to Bangalore torpedoes, in the use of which he trained the unauthorised party which had long existed under the name of the 6th Division Shield Party. With them he took part in many raids and minor enterprises, one of which earned him the D.S.O. On the 10th June he was reported missing from a patrol of the 9th Norfolk Regiment, and nothing has since been heard of him. For nearly two years he contrived to serve voluntarily with the Division, nobody quite knows in what capacity or by what authority, and during that time he endeared himself to all by his unfailing good nature and cheeriness, his whole-hearted enthusiasm and his lack of fear. It may here be mentioned that during its last "rest" the Division carried out very hard training over dummy trenches for an attack on the Pilkem Ridge, in conjunction with the Guards. This attack was abandoned when the Division moved to the Somme, but it formed the basis of the very successful attack delivered by the Guards and Welsh Divisions in July 1917. CHAPTER VI THE SOMME 1916 At the end of July the Division was at last relieved from the Salient, where it had suffered nearly 11,000 casualties during its thirteen months' sojourn, and went south by train to join the Fifth Army. The greater part of August was spent on the Ancre, on the front opposite Beaumont-Hamel, making preparations for an attack which was eventually abandoned for a time.