Taken on the 14th July after several days of confused, no-quarter fighting, by units of the 18th (Midland) Division under the inspired command of Lt. Col Frank Maxwell VC, who, with enormous difficulty pursuaded the men of his battalion to form a line and 'beat' the dense thicket in the manner of a peacetime pheasant shoot, thereby preventing the enemy from isolating individuals and parties and picking them off from behind.

"To talk of a 'wood' is to talk rot. It was the most dreadful tangle of dense trees and undergrowth imaginable, with deep, yawning broken trenches criss-crossing about it. Every tree broken off at top or bottom and branches cut away, so that the floor of the wood was almost an impenetrable tangle of timber, branches and undergrowth, blown to pieces by British and German heavy guns for a week. Never was anything so perfectly dreadful to look at...particularly with its dreadful addiction of corpses and wounded men, many lying out for days and days."