The fall of Guillemont came as a savage psychological blow to the German army, which had invested so much blood and effort in its defence. Infantry Regiment 76 from Hamburg published a detailed book later which, apart from describing fully the course of events, devoted much space to a description of how the men of the Regiment had done all in their power to hold on, to explaining that their artillery support had faltered at a critical time and to putting forward the case that rigid defence here was pursued longer than it should have been. They really had nothing to apologise for. The losses on the appalling day were simply dreadful. 2nd Battalion Infantry Regiment 76 was utterly destroyed. The survivors of the 5th company, having reached the rear assembly point, posed for a photograph. There were five of them. When, some years later, the time came to write their Regimental History, nobody at all was left from 3rd Company Fusilier Regiment 73, the Regiment of Ernst Junger, of ‘Storm of Steel’ fame, to contribute. They had all fallen in the defence of Guillemont. Struggling to do justice to their sacrifice, Major Seiler, their historian, hit on a possibly unique solution. One entire page carries, in bold typeface, a simple statement:3./73 Nobody from 3rd Company can provide a report — all the men were killed, as was every officer. We honour these courageous comrades symbolically through this silent page, believing that the simple ‘3./73,’ is more eloquent than words…
Jack Sheldon, from The German Army on the Somme, 1914-1916 (Pen & Sword 2007)
