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Jack Horner (left) was a young soldier of the 8th battalion
from Leicester. As he advanced across the open ground between Mametz Wood and Bazentin le Petit Wood, his battalion came under
murderous flanking fire from Contalmaison Villa. He remembered: "I got a bullet through my right forearm. If you are hit
by a high velocity bullet, its like a red hot poker going through your flesh, and the force with which it travelled knocked
me back, and flung my rifle yards away. There wasn't a great deal of blood, but my right hand went dead and immoveable."
Meanwhile, De Lisle and his men had entered Bazentin le Petit Wood, where
the trees echoed to the explosion of grenades and the crackle of machinegun fire. The trees were now mostly smashed
by shellfire and amongst them lay the bodies of Tigers mown down by German machine guns in the wood. De Lisle came upon "a
most vivid picture of war ... a machine gun still pointing towards our lines with the Hun gunner still grasping, in the rigors
of death, the traversing handle of the gun when a well aimed British bullet had laid him stark and stiff,"
 By late morning all but the northernmost corner of the wood had been
taken, with over 300 prisoners taken by the 9th battalion alone. By late afternoon resistance here too was finally broken,
and as night fell the exhausted survivors took what sleep they could. Captain C.A.B.Elliott (right) of the 8th battalion recording
"spent the night 14/15th in a shallow communication trench running E & W across Bazentin-le-Petit wood ... at about
3.30am our CQMS arrived with his ration party and plenty of water, which was much wanted, though tasting strongly of petrol."
At the end of that day, Dick Read of the 8th battalion (left) and
his pal Jackie Johnson sat in a shellhole on the battlefield, dirty and tired, and ran through the names of those they already
knew to have been killed. Read remembered:
"Eventually Jackie broke the silence ... "Christ, there'll
be hell to pay in Leicester and Loughborough... and Coalville...and Melton...and Uppingham...when they know about this. The
Leicester Brigade, eh? Bloody well wiped out!" and he trailed off into silence again, immersed in his thoughts."
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Below: Soldier's identity disc worn by L/Cpl Horace Chesham,
8th battalion, on 14 July. He was killed in action that day, and the disc returned to his next of kin with his effects. One
of the most poignant reminders of the battle
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Above: A British soldier's jack-knife, found in 2003 on
the location of the German front line at about the point at which the 6th battalion would have crossed it on the
morning of 14 July 1916
Left: Leicestershire Regiment soldiers light a German prisoner's
cigarette, Contalmaison July 1916. It is likely that these men are of the 6th or 7th battalions and that the incident
took place behind the lines following the Bazentin Ridge battle
Above: medals of Pte J.E.Roberts and Pte A.Woodlands, two miners
from Langwith Colliery on the Nottinghamshire border, who enlisted together and served in the 7th battalion on the Somme.
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