#6/3601 Private George Anderson
2ND CANTERBURY REGIMENT
ON 20TH SEPTEMBER THE WEATHER cleared somewhat. Having now been pushed back beyond their original positions of 1st July with their strategic withdrawal to the Le Transloy Ridge in Rawlinson’s sector, the Germans had dug in furiously. It had become clear that Haig’s grand offensive was not going to blow the Kaiser’s army away as planned. The French were losing their enthusiasm for the campaign on the Somme, under tremendous pressure thanks to Verdun and their own significant losses on 15th September. It was decided that new troops must now be brought forward before any more major attacks could be carried out with co-operation between the Allies. This would happen by 25th September, and plans were made to continue the offensive, taking in Gueudecourt, Lesboeufs, Morval and the so-called Meteorological Trenches in between the first two villages: a group with names such as Misty, Storm, Cloudy and Rainbow. In the meantime though, the situation on Rawlinson’s front was far from settled.
Forty-year-old miner George Anderson, a single man, had left his Northumberland home and sailed for New Zealand some years before the war. In 1914 George was working for the Stockton Coal Company at Mine Creek on the west coast of the South Island. Having served with a volunteer artillery unit at home in Alnwick, George gave up his job the following year and volunteered for the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, joining the 2nd Battalion of the Canterbury Regiment in Egypt in March 1916.
At 5:30pm on 15th September, George and his cohorts were ordered to relieve New Zealand troops that had made the assault to continue with consolidation, and they also began forming large carrying parties for stores and ammunition. Work continued amidst heavy showers over the following days, under a persistent bombardment of high explosive shells that left the Canterbury men cowering in their sodden shelters. The intensity of their spell in the lines was raised again on the 19th when the battalion relieved those holding the front line, before, on the 20th, the 2nd Canterbury were ordered to attack Goose Alley, a long trench to the north-west of Flers that blocked off the villages of Le Sars and Warlencourt in the distance, without a bombardment to procede them.
George’s company was one of three that took part in the assault. They left their trenches and went forward without a barrage, creeping to within 50 yards under cover of darkness before they were detected. The enemy immediately opened up heavy machine-gun and rifle fire when they spotted the New Zealanders. In spite of the casualties, George’s battalion rushed the enemy trench and managed to clear it. The artillery promptly began bombarding the area around the captured positions to prevent the Germans bringing up troops to claim back conquered ground.
The New Zealand Memorial at Caterpillar Valley Cemetery. (Andrew Holmes)
Nonetheless, at 10pm the enemy launched a strong counter-attack, forcing George and the rest of the Canterbury men back. Hand-to-hand, vicious fighting ensued. The Germans surged at them with little egg-shaped bombs until reinforcements arrived carrying supplies so that George’s battalion could counter their efforts. ‘No quarter was asked or given. Now a storm of bombs would kill or maim the defenders, now the ride would flow once more up the bloody trenches amid the dead and mutilated and dying.’ The enemy seized a trench on the New Zealand left and parts of the lines around Flers. They were coming round on both flanks and threatening to cut off the New Zealanders. The men were exhausted and the Bavarians coming at them smelled blood. George’s battalion were fiercely determined to stand their ground. Heavy fighting continued all night; first the Germans were on top, then the Brits and the New Zealanders.
Finally, at about 4am, the enemy were driven back from their hard won position. There was no rest for the Canterbury men though as they were forced to dig and then dig some more, furiously trying to steel themselves to defend their ground before the next inevitable counter-attack. The officer in charge rallied anyone that he could find to help, leading his own counter-attack ‘with unsurpassable determination’. Just before dawn the German effort slackened and throughout the day George worked with pick and shovel to form a suitable position facing the valley that led off towards Le Sars past Eaucourt l’Abbaye. The battalion also formed bombing posts to man the block that they had put up in the trench they were sharing with the enemy.
George Anderson’s ordeal was still not over. Having paused to compose themselves, on the evening of 21st September a determined counter-attack was delivered without any warning by about 200 Germans, who worked up three approaches towards the Canterbury battalion. George and his companions, who had been fighting and working all day and all night, clung on for dear life. Then, utterly exhausted, they began yielding their trench one bay at a time. The New Zealanders climbed out of their saps and, in view of enemy snipers, crept along the parapet and began flinging bombs down at the Germans inside. At the tip of a bayonet, the enemy was driven back down the slope. The 2nd Battalion of the Canterbury Regiment had somehow held on, quite literally in the face of everything that their Bavarian opposition could throw at them. Despite the competency of the Kaiser’s bombers, the enemy was routed by a bayonet charge over open ground.
For their efforts, almost half the already seriously depleted Canterbury battalion were now casualties. The ground was littered with dead from both sides. George Anderson was reported variously as both wounded and missing on 21st September until an inquest was held. Witnesses revealed that for some time during the course of the day he had sheltered in a shell hole with members of his company. Their platoon commander was killed while they sat there. The next morning, when the men went back to search for the officer’s body they also found George. His remains, if recovered for burial, were never identified and George Anderson is commemorated on the memorial at Caterpillar Valley with more than 1,200 other New Zealand soldiers with no known grave on the Somme.