Military History

Harold is listed as dying of wounds received in action on 21st July 1916. The Warwickshire Roll of Honour by Kenneth Fowler states that Harold was wounded on the 9th March 1916 and subsequently died of those wounds and was buried at Heilly Station Cemetery. The 2nd Battalion war diary confirms that two men were wounded in the trenches at Cuinchy on 9th March 1916.

However Heilly Cemetery was used for burials by the 36th, 38th and 2nd/2nd London Casualty Clearing Stations and according to an answer provided by Grok AI search "During major offensives, such as the Battle of the Somme in 1916, the influx of casualties could overwhelm a CCS, leading to faster turnover times—sometimes as little as 6 to 12 hours—for those who could be stabilized and evacuated. The goal was to clear space for new arrivals, with evacuation often timed to coincide with the availability of transport, such as hospital trains that ran on schedules dictated by the intensity of fighting and railway logistics".

Therefore it is not plausible that Harold had been in a Casualty Clearing Station for 4 months before he died and it is more than likely that he was wounded during the Battle of Delville Wood. Unfortunately Harold's service records did not survive the WW2 fire and we cannot be 100% certain about this.

A description of the events of the battle are provided below by Men on the Gates.

19th July 1916: The second assault on High Wood was planned for 19 July. The main assault was by Scottish troops from 1 Bn Cameronians, 5 Bn Scottish Rifles and 20 Bn Royal Fusiliers, The Public Schools Battalion. 

The 2 Bn Royal Welsh Fusiliers had been in billets at Mametz Wood. At midnight on the night of 19 July they moved up to Flatiron Copse as brigade reserves. They were heavily shelled from 3.00am until 8.00am and then intermittently until mid-day when they were ordered forward to High Wood which they reached at about 2.00pm, The wood had only been partially captured by the assault troops, the Welshmen were to capture the rest. 

This they managed to do but only after heavy fighting to reach the eastern side, here, because of machine gun fire from a German position known as the Switch, they had to retreat to establish and dig a defensive line about 100 yards from the edge of the wood where they spent the rest of the day and through to 1.00am on the 21 July when they were relieved and returned to billets at Mametz Wood. Casualties were Officers 2 killed and 9 wounded, ORs 29 killed, 180 wounded and 29 missing including Harold.