Pte. John William Paice arrived in France on 25/02/1915. His unit was positioned near Foncquevillers, where it was the attack towards the village of Gommecourt on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. The British artillery had pounded the German trenches for seven days and nights, but it had had only limited success. When the four waves of the 1/7th Battalion advanced in to No Man's Land that Saturday morning they were soon in trouble. German shells and machine gun fire began to tear great holes in the line. The colonel and the adjutant went down in the first two minutes. Nevertheless the men continued forward. By the time they were seventy yards from the German front line they could see that their task was hopeless. The wire was barely cut, and further men were going down under a hale of fire. Around two dozen penetrated the German defences, but were too small in number to hold on. Of the 746 men who set out that morning only 96 answered their name at roll call that evening. Pte. Paice was one of those killed in action.

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