Communications back to Divisional HQ were confused by false reports that parties of troops had penetrated the German front line. Therefore, at 8.45, the two battalions of Divisional Reserve, 1st Essex and 1st Newfoundland, were pitched into the unfolding tragedy, with vague instructions to complete the occupation of the first line of German trenches. So choked were the British communication trenches with dead, wounded and withdrawing troops that the commanding officer of the Newfoundlanders was compelled to order his men to advance on the surface. As they appeared on the skyline they provided a rich target for the enemy machine-gunners. Many troops were thus killed or wounded whilst still behind the British jumping-off trenches. Others managed to reach the hundred or so yards beyond the front line, where they came under a fierce shrapnel barrage along the line marked now by these trees, then a small copse which offered some illusion of safety.