1. The troops in the quarries comprised two companies plus the headquarters staff of the 2/7th Lancashire Fusiliers, and two companies of pioneers of the 5th Border Regiment. Although they were attacked from both sides as well as from the rear, they held out until five o’clock in the afternoon, when they were forced to surrender. While the fighting was going on for Templeux-le-Guérard, a runner had been sent ordering them to retire, but he had not managed to reach them. Only a few men succeeded in breaking out when they were surrounded.
1. In March 1918 the 9th (Scottish) Division comprised: 26 Brigade (8th Black Watch, 7th Seaforth Highlanders, 5th Cameron Highlanders); 27 Brigade (11th Royal Scots, 12th Royal Scots, 6th King’s Own Scottish Borderers) and South African Brigade (1st South African Infantry, 2nd South African Infantry, 4th South African Infantry, which was the South African Scottish).
1. Garnet Green was awarded the Military Cross. A year later, at Passchendaele, he added a bar to this decoration and was promoted to the rank of captain.
2. The South African National Memorial has in recent years been placed at Delville Wood. It is the right and proper place for it, but it is only fair to say that the gallantry and suffering of the entire 9th Division at Delville Wood deserves acknowledgement, although it is natural that the performance of the small but valiant South African force has tended to overshadow that of their comrades. By comparison with the mass of the Allied forces, there were so few South Africans on the Western Front and their losses were so disproportionately heavy that Delville Wood grew to be the symbol of the South African sacrifice, and the battle – then as now – has been adopted as their own, in much the same way, and largely for the same reason, as the Australians have ‘adopted’ Gallipoli.
1. Lieutenant-Colonel Reginald Howlett, DSO, MC and Bar, did survive the war and continued to serve as a Regular Army officer until his retirement as a brigadier in 1939.
1. Beviss escaped only to be killed three days later at Marrières Wood. His body was not recovered, nor was Garnet Green’s. Both are commemorated on the South African panels (96 and 97) of the Memorial to the Missing in Pozières Cemetery on the Somme.