divisional field artillery was to lift for as each infantry advance began and then move east at per minute. Each division was to reserve two 18-pounder batteries ready to advance at short notice; visual signalling, runners, flares, signals to contact patrol aircraft and wide-angle signalling lamps were provided. Bombers (hand-grenade specialists in the infantry) carried flags to mark the front line. Battle 1 July A witness to the detonation of the Hawthorn Ridge mine was British cinematographer Geoffrey Malins, who filmed the 29th Division attack. Malins set up on the side of the White City trenches, about from Hawthorn Ridge, ready for the explosion at As soon as the mine blew, the bombardment on the German front line by heavy artillery lifted and Stokes mortars, which had been placed in advanced sites, along with four more in the sunken lane in no man's land, began a hurricane bombardment on the front trench. The regimental history of RIR 119 recorded that the detonation was the signal for the German infantry to stand to at their shelter entrances. Two platoons of the 2nd Battalion, Royal Fusiliers (86th Brigade, 29th Division) with four machine-guns and four Stokes mortars, rushed the crater. As the British troops reached the near lip, they were engaged by small-arms fire from the far lip and the flanks. At least three of the 1st Platoon ( Renz) and the members of the 2nd Platoon ( Böhm) on the left side of the platoon area had been killed in the mine explosion. The entrances to the 3rd Platoon ( Breitmeyer) and some of the 2nd Platoon (underground shelters) caved in and only two escaped. The rest of the 9th Company in (deep-mined dug-outs) survived but the entrances were blocked and the troops inside were not rescued until after the British attack. The detonation was swiftly followed by a German counter-barrage and in the next few minutes, German machine-guns opened fire all along the front. The British divisions forming up in no man's land to reach the jumping-off position short of the German front line, were caught in the machine-gun fire and suffered many casualties. German troops occupied the far lip of the crater at the Hawthorn Ridge Redoubt, turned machine-guns and trench mortars to the right and left flanks and fired into the British troops as they tried to advance. The attack on the redoubt and the rest of the