The History of the 36th (Ulster) DivisionFalls, Cyril
History
The History of the 36th (Ulster) Division
Falls, Cyril
Great Britain. Army. Division, 36th; World War, 1914-1918 -- Regimental histories -- Great Britain
That night the 36th Division was relieved by the 49th. The 148th
Brigade relieved the 107th in the two lines of trenches now held,
between A 12 and A 19. The relief was not complete till after ten
o'clock the following morning, when a weary, tattered, pitiful
remnant marched into Martinsart and flung themselves down to sleep.
They had brought back to Thiepval Wood fourteen prisoners. The total
number captured by the 36th Division in the offensive was five
hundred and forty-three. Its casualties in the two days amounted to
five thousand five hundred officers and other ranks killed, wounded,
and missing. The whole Province was thrown into mourning for its
sons. Among the dead were Colonel H. C. Bernard, of the 10th Rifles;
Major G. H. Gaffiken, of the 9th, who had led his company to the
final objective; Lieutenant G. St. G. S. Cather, Adjutant of the 9th
Irish Fusiliers, awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross for his services
in bringing in wounded under machine-gun fire, in the course of which
he lost his life; Captain E. N. F. Bell, 9th Inniskillings, attached
109th Trench Mortar Battery, who likewise had bestowed on him that
last honour. Captain Charles Craig, M.P. for South Antrim, was
wounded and taken prisoner. Some battalions had almost disappeared.
The 9th Irish Fusiliers, for example, had at the end of the first
day none of the officers and only eighty other ranks left unwounded
of the force that took part in the attack. The figures of the 8th
Rifles, as of a battalion below rather than above the average in
casualties, may be given in full. Officers: fifteen wounded, five
missing. Other ranks: twenty-four killed, two hundred and sixteen
wounded, one hundred and eighty-six missing. And of the "missing," it
must be recorded that three-fourths at least were in reality dead,
somewhere out in front of the line finally handed over.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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