Captain Reginald Underhill
4TH MIDDLESEX REGIMENT
HOWEVER MUCH DOGGED TENACITY GOUGH possessed, along with a belief that his men could still push on before winter, Haig had had enough. He ordered an end to operations for 1916. Despite this though, Gough pleaded for, and was given permission to have, one last shot at the enemy before a line was drawn under the Battle of the Somme.
Captain Reginald Underhill. (Private collection)
The men earmarked for this questionable attempt would have to go forward in simply atrocious conditions. Among them was a 29 year old who had been born in Tipton Green, near West Bromwich. Reginald Underhill’s father took his wife and six children to Vancouver in 1894, where the family nearly doubled in size once on Canadian soil. A bookkeeper and then an assurance real estate agent, Reginald and his younger brother Charles had rushed to enlist in the 7th Canadian Infantry in August 1914, and were with the first contingent of their countrymen to arrive in Europe in October. The brothers had sought and been given commissions on arrival in England. Reginald was well qualified, having offered ten years with the Duke of Connaught’s Own Royal Canadians as a volunteer NCO. He had subsequently been sent to the Middlesex Regiment and separated from his brother. In March 1916, at the age of 22, Charles was killed in Belgium while serving with the 12th West Yorkshires. Eight months later, his brother was preparing to attack right on the banks of the Ancre.
Reginald and his men had already been in the trenches for days. The weather was bitterly cold with the mornings frosty, and the first flecks of snow had even begun to drift down at night. On the 17th, as Reginald waited to attack, it was heavier. Morning came and it had deteriorated into a blinding, wet sleet that was driven into their faces as they moved forward to their jumping off positions ready to play their supporting role when the advance began at 11am. ‘The elements played their final part. A thaw set in changing the battlefield once again into a sea of mud, and mixed rain and snowstorms shrouded the movements of the infantry.’ Reginald and his men could barely move. The mud in some places as they tried to advance was knee deep. The commanding officer of the battalion set to advance in front of them went forward after his men were supposed to have set off and found them in the midst of the sleet and rain, cowering in shell holes and trying to avoid the fire of their own artillery. Plans were quickly revised. The Middlesex men would come up, Reginald included, and, after a fresh artillery barrage, both battalions would go forward together towards Puiseux Trench.
Having come through Beaucourt, Reginald organised his troops and they found themselves involved sooner than planned. Before the revised time for attack, a number of Somerset bombers managed to get into Puiseux Trench south of the road to Miraumont. Reginald’s company was sent up to help them seize it down to the Ancre and consolidate the position. Three of its officers were killed, throwing the company into disarray. Reginald Underhill was among them. The following day it transpired that, south of the river, the assault on Grandcourt had failed. It left the Middlesex men in Puiseux Trench in an untenable position. After all their suffering, they had to give up their hold on it and withdraw to conform with the rest of the line, demolishing the trench as they left. Reginald’s body, if recovered, was never identified and he is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial, Pier & Face 12d/13b.