6th Division included the 16th Brigade, which in turn included the 2nd York & Lancs.

Map of 6 Division area The Quadrilateral Start line for Guards & 6th Division Artillery barrage plan

The following is from the 6th Division history and sets the scene before the attack on the 15th; “On the 9th September a successful attack had given us Ginchy and Leuze Wood, but the Germans were holding very strongly the high ground which lies in the form of a horse-shoe between the above named points, [you can see this from the contour on the map below] and which dominates the coutry for some distance to the south. The trenches followed the shape of the spur roughly at the back end of the horse-shoe, and covered access was given to them by a sunken road leading back to the deep valley which runs north from Combles. At the top of the spur, just south of the railway and communicating with the sunken road, was a four-sided trench in the form of a parallelogram of some 300 yards by 150 yards, called by us the Quadrilateral. [marked by the red ‘Q’ in map below]  It was this strong point and the adjoining trenches which had held up the advance of the Fourth Army on the 9th September, and it was the first task of the 6th Division to obliterate the horse-shoe and straighten the line preparatory to a general attack on the 15th September.” The 2nd Battalion history continues; “On the 13th, an attempt was made by portions of the 16th and 71st Brigades to capture the Quadrilateral, but the battalion (2nd) was not employed, and but little success was gained, while the battalions engaged suffered considerably; and it was now decided to include the Quadrilateral in a general attack to be made on the 15th.

Map is a portion of one of those on the IWM Trench Map CD

The map below is a larger scale to show the Quadrilateral, about 1/3rd of it is above the railway. It is just to the left of the name on the map. One reason that it posed such a problem was that the artillery did not hit it as hard as intended, the problem seems to have been that they were not sure exactly where it was.  On the map below the contour line that sweeps through the feature is the 150m contour, and it shows the majority of the feature behind this contour, with an apparent slope of 8 metres to the 141.7 spot height.  Apparently this spot height is wrong, those who were there say that the crest of the feature was on the rear trench [by the ‘Q’ in quadrilateral] so that the ground actually sloped up from the front to the rear trench. Because of this mistake much of the barrage was brought down on the rear trench and beyond, rather than the strong point itself.

Map is a portion of one of those on the IWM Trench Map CD

Major General C. Ross commanding the 6th Division, together with the Brigade commanders, was responsible for planning their attack and their first complication was the Green Line (1st objective) and the artillery barrage plan.  On the right the sketch shows that the start point (red line) for the Guards Div on the left of the 6th, is more advanced, and the 6th have the Quadrilateral in their path of advance.  The green Line for both divisions needed to be reasonably in line to prevent the Guards in their 1st objective being enfiladed from the flank as they would be if the 6th first objective were less advanced.  This means that with the Quadrilateral in their way, the 6th have a lot to do to get to their Green Line.

The next planning problem was the artillery barrage. The Fourth Army plan called for a creeping and a stationary barrage, in the area of 6th Division the stationary barrage would be laid down by 18 pounder guns, and its target was the Divisional Objective, the Green Line.  Unfortunately the Green Line for 6th Divn. did not define a German trench system, it was a line on the map that would receive the battering, and while this might prevent German reinforcements moving through the barrage to their forward trenches, it would not destroy anything that the 6th would later have to attack.  This Green Line was later moved at Ross’s request, but it made little difference, as the 6th did not get that far that day. Of more immediate impact was the creeping barrage.

The creeping barrage would normally start some 100 yards in front of the troops start position and move forward at the rate of 50 yards a minute, but in this case it was planned to start some 100 yards beyond the Quadrilateral to assist the Guards on the left of the 6th.  Ross voiced his concern at this plan, as it hinged totally on the tanks, 3 of them, being able to take out the Quadrilateral before the arrival of the infantry and as a consequence half of the creeping barrage would start beyond the strong point, the other half would come down on the front of the strong point and creep forward at twice the normal speed, i.e. 100 yards a minute, to catch up with the rest of the barrage. Also, to allow for the planned movement of the tanks, there would be clear paths in the barrage which the tanks were planned to move along.  Unfortunately, when the tank plan fell down this meant that there were areas in the German defences that would not receive an artillery barrage.

Battery Sergeant-Major described what he had seen; “I have forgotten the ‘land crabs’, the great armoured cars that took part in the battle of the 15th - some are lying on their backs mangled masses of twisted and broken iron, others are back in their repairing yards, all are more or less crocked but Gad the execution they did was awful.  It struck me as I saw them from the corner of Leuze Wood, how symbolic of all war they were. Then one saw them creeping along at about four miles an hour, taking all obstacles as they came, sputtering death with all their guns, enfilading each trench as it came to it - and crushing beneath them our own dead and dying as they passed. I saw one body on a concrete parapet over which one had passed.  This body was just a splash of blood and clothing about two feet wide and perhaps an inch thick, an hour before this thing had been a thinking, breathing man, with life before him and loved ones waiting at home, probably somewhere in Scotland, for he was a kiltie.

Nothing stops these cars, trees bend and break, boulders are pressed into the earth. One had been hit by a large shell and the petrol tanks pierced, she lay on her side in flames, a picture of hopelessness but every gun on the uppermost side still working with dogged determination.  The firing gradually slackened and she lay silent, the gallant little crew burned to death each man at his gun.”