t-Hamel took 300 prisoners, and in the village
itself 700 were captured, mostly soldiers from Silesia and East
Prussia. At the close of the day over 2,000 German prisoners had been
taken, and the ground won by the British amounted to about four square
miles. During the night of November 12, 1916, and during the day
following in the clean-up of the labyrinthian defenses which the
Germans had skillfully constructed 2,000 more prisoners were added to
the number already captured in this sector. The British advance had
brought them to the outskirts of Beaucourt-sur-Ancre, which was taken
on November 14, 1916. Pushing on through the village to the left of
it, the British troops advanced over the high ground to the northeast
of Beaumont-Hamel, on to the road from Serre to Beaucourt, having
gathered in another thousand prisoners on the way.

During the two days' fighting in this region no British troops won
greater distinction than the Scots and the Royal Naval Division. In
all the German lines in France there was no more formidable position
than the angle immediately above the Ancre, where Beaumont-Hamel lay
in a hollow of the hill. On the morning of November 13, 1916, the
Royal Naval Division attacked the stretch from just below the "Y"
ravine on the south of Beaumont-Hamel to the north side of the Ancre.
After a preliminary bombardment, which played havoc with the German
barbed-wire entanglements protecting their front line, the British
naval troops swept over the line with a rush as if the barriers had
been made of straw. The British right rested on the Ancre as they
swept across the valley bottom. Northwest, where there was a rise of
ground, the center of the line had to attack diagonally along the
slope of the hill. At the top of the slope there was a German redoubt
hidden in a curve, and invisible in front, composed of a triangle of
three deep pits with concrete emplacements for machine guns which
could sweep the slope in all directions. This formidable redoubt was
situated immediately behind the German front trench, reaching back to,
and resting on, the second. At all points the British naval troops
carried the front trench by storm. On the right they rushed along the
valley bottom and the lower part of the slope, carrying line after
line of trench on to the dip where a sunken road ran along their front
going up from the Ancre to Beaumont-Hamel on the left.

Here for a short space of time the British troops rested whil