New Zealand Memorial, Guedecourt - map of the battleground at the time of the Somme
Very nearly the limit of the advance in this sector. The Caribou here commemorates the Newfoundland Battalion, which had suffered more losses in its attack on Beaumont Hamel on 1 July than any other battalion, and was still fighting here at the battle's end, capturing a nearby trench on 12 October.
The scene of the last burst of fighting on the Somme, officially the Battle of Transloy Ridges, 7-20 October.
By this time the weather had broken. There was a sea of mud behind the British trenches. It took at least four men to carry a stretcher back, and there was no wheeled transport for 3,500 yards until a light railway track at Longueval. Frost bite and trench foot were running at about 1000 cases per week by the autumn.
A great tract of ground to the east was given up by the Germans in early 1917 when they fell back to the Hindenburg Line.
