Gommecourt 48th Heavy Artillery Group was assigned to support VII Corps' Attack on the Gommecourt Salient in the forthcoming 'Big Push' (the Battle of the Somme). The battery was ordered to Berles-au-Bois north of Gommecourt at the beginning of May and spent a week preparing positions for its guns. It was then ordered to hand these over to 116th Hvy Bty, which would move in during June, so for several weeks the battery's gunners had to labour both to finish these positions for 116th Hvy Bty, and their own new positions, including a shell store for 400 rounds. Throughout May and through most of June, the battery fired on German positions around Adinfer Wood. 48th Heavy Artillery Group's main role was Counter-battery fire to destroy the German artillery facing 56th (1st London) Division's attack front, although the Territorials' 4.7-inch guns could not actually reach the German heavy gun positions in the rear, and accuracy of the 4.7-inch batteries was generally poor. The planned seven-day bombardment of the German positions began on 24 June but 1/1st Lowland Hvy Bty did not begin registering its guns on Bucquoy until 27 June (X Day). Later, the guns practised a six-minute 'hurricane' bombardment on the German positions in which the battery fired 68 rounds. Y Day was spent shelling German gun positions, but the weather was poor for observation, and the battery only fired 20 rounds. Because of the weather, the attack was postponed for two days, and the additional days (Y1 and Y2) were used for further bombardment. The battery was silent on Y1. On Y2, 48th HAG engaged 18 separate targets, and 1/1st Lowland Hvy Bty fired 220 rounds, but this was far below the 400 per battery permitted, because of continuing difficulties of observation. Many of these rounds were wide of their intended targets. The failure to neutralise the German guns would have disastrous results for the attacking infantry. On Z Day (1 July), the entire artillery supporting 56th Division fired a 65-minute bombardment of the German front, starting at 06.25. At 07.30, the guns lifted onto their pre-arranged targets in the German support and reserve lines as the infantry got out of their forward trenches and advanced towards Gommecourt. At first, this went well for 56th Division. Despite casualties from the German counter-bombardment on their jumping-off trenches, the smoke and morning mist helped the infantry, and they reached the German