Coordinates: 50°1′21.6″N 2°49′56.8″E / 50.022667°N 2.832444°E / 50.022667; 2.832444
The Battle of Ginchy took place on 9 September 1916 during the Battle of the Somme when the United Kingdom 16th (Irish) Division captured the German-held village of Ginchy. However the Irish Royal Munster Fusiliers suffered heavy casualties in the process. Indeed of the two attacking brigades, the 47th Brigade (8th Battalion) failed completely, encountering enemy defences unaffected by the British bombardment whose shelling kept falling short into no-mans land. The seven Irish battalions chiefly involved in the fighting lost eight officers and 220 men killed, six officers and sixty-one men in the 9th Battalion of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers.[1]
In terms of the Somme fighting, the attack was highly successful with the village being taken on the first attempt. The Irish took the well fortified village in an hour. A London newspaper headlined How the Irish took Ginchy - Splendid daring of the Irish troops[2]
For the Germans the loss of Ginchy deprived them of their strategic observation posts overlooking the entire battlefield.
- ^ Corrigan, Gordan: Mud, Blood and Poppycock p.288,Cassel Military Paperbacks (2004) ISBN 978-0-304-36659-0
- ^ Daily Express London, pp.1 & 5, Sept. 12, 1916
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