At 1:30am on the 23 of July, the 154 Brigade of the 51 Division moved forward and attacked High Wood. The attacked failed when the 1/ 4 Gordon Highlanders lost direction in the wood, coming under heavy machine-gun fire and being forced to retire. The 1/9 Royal Scots moving up to support the Gordon Highlanders were heavily shelled as they advanced up a depression to the Southwest of the wood, forcing them to retire. By 3am both battalions were back at their start lines having taken 450 casualties, Alexander was slightly wounded at High Wood and spent some time in a field hospital.

The 51(Highland) Division was then moved back to reserve trenches to re-equip and receive replacement drafts. In the reserve trenches the Division supplied men for front line duties and patrolling, so that the battalions could get experience of being under fire before the attack to come in November.

The Battle of the Somme was nearly over by November 1916, some success had been achieved but the losses on both sides had been horrendous. The British High Command decided to make one last attack at Beaumont Hamel, enemy defences around the village were thick with machine-gun posts and barbed wire; an area called Y ravine was found to be almost impregnable by attacking Divisions.

The 51 (Highland) Division was tasked to attack Beaumont Hamel on the 13 of November 1916; the attack would take place after a two-hour intensive bombardment destroyed the enemy wire. The attack would then be launched alongside the 63(Naval) Division on the right and the 39 Division on the left.

The 5 Seaforths spent early November 1916 camped in Mailly-Maillet Wood, the battalion supplied working parties to the front line trenches opposite Beaumont Hamel, carried out route marches and attack practice. On the 6 of November the Seaforths were withdrawn to a camp in the village of Forceville, battalion strength was 35 officers and 852 other ranks.

On the 12 of November the battalion paraded at 12:30pm for a kit inspection, before moving off for the trenches at 9pm. The Seaforths marched from Forceville to Mailley-Mallet, and then through Mailly Wood into their attack position, the move into the frontline was helped by thick fog descending on the battlefield. Forty four thousand British troops now sat waiting to attack over no-mans land, as British artillery pounded away at the enemy lines.

The Seaforths found the frontline trenches in a terrible state and the soldiers were forced to lie out in the open, behind the edge of the trenches for cover. Some units moved out into no-mans land so that they would be closer to the enemy with less distance to cover when the barrage ceased.

At zero hour (5:45am) the Seaforth Highlanders fixed bayonets and as the bombardment increased, a mine was exploded under the Hawthorn Redoubt to the right of Y Ravine. The attacking infantry rose from cover to advance on an 8000yard front into the fog and the enemy positions across the flat land to their front.

Heavy machine gun fire from the enemy lines and uncut wire in the centre delayed the advance so much, the leading waves could not keep up with the barrage. The thick fog also caused some problems, splitting the attacking waves into small parties who soon gained entry in the German First line. Dazed German soldiers offered little resistance to the kilted figures appearing through the mist; the Highlanders quickly took all trenches south of Y Ravine. The first objective on the road from Beaumont Hamel to the railway station was taken by 6:45am, exactly on time.

The 152 and 153 Brigade assaulted the deep fold in the ground at Y Ravine; the going was very difficult due to the dead bodies and litter of battle still present from the attack on July 1. Fierce hand to hand fighting took place in Y Ravine as the 6 Black Watch and 7 Gordon Highlanders tried to force their way through at bayonet point, at one stage 100 men were pinned down by heavy fire. The 7 Black Watch moved forward through heavy mud and got into Y Ravine, re-supplying the men pinned down there with hand grenades and ammunition so the attack could continue.

When Hawthorn Re-doubt exploded at zero hour, destroying six enemy dugouts and burying 300 Germans alive, the 5 Seaforths swarmed into the smouldering crater taking the German First line. The 5 Seaforths then carried on over the hill and into what remained of Beaumont Hamel village, as they did some of their men became bogged down waist deep in a sea of mud, many men were lost here due too heavy machine-gun fire.

The 6 Seaforths were quickly moved forward to come to the assistance of their sister battalion and with the help of the bombing platoons and Lewis gunners, the bogged down 5 Battalion moved on. The two battalions carried the fight into the second line and onto the third before two enemy machine gun posts held them up, however those were soon dealt with as nothing would hold up the advance of the 51 (Highland) Division on that day.

The Highland Division had taken its objective, the impregnable village of Beaumont Hamel along with several thousand Germans prisoners against all the odds; they now began to consolidate the ground taken. The attack was continued on the 14 of November but no further gains were made, the 1/7 Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders got as far froward as Munich Trench. A lack of communication saw the Argylls so heavily shelled by British heavy batteries, they had to pull back.

The 6 Seaforth Highlanders dug in their new positions beyond Beaumont Hamel and improved their new line until they were withdrawn to Mailly Mallet Wood. Total battalion casualties for the two days of the attack on Y Ravine and the village of Beaumont Hamel was eighty men killed, fourteen died of wounds, one hundred and ninety-three were wounded and five were reported as missing. Private Alexander Mackay was one of those killed as his battalion stormed through enemy lines at Hawthorn Redoubt; he was nineteen years of age. In this area of the battlefield today is the Newfoundland Memorial Park, the trenches here were left exactly as they were at the time of the fighting. It is easy to follow the course of the battle inside the Park; the ground crossed by the soldiers that day can easily be seen. (See also James McDougall Skerray.)

The Memorial Park also remembers the 710 men from the Newfoundland Regiment killed or wounded as they crossed no-mans land on the 1 of July 1916. At the bottom end of the park above Y Ravine stands the 51 (Highland) Division Memorial, a bronze statue of a kilted soldier facing the German lines, an inscription on the base of the memorial says in Gaelic “ La A Bhlairs Math Na Cairndean”. (On the day of battle friends are good).

Both of Alexander Mackay’s brothers were killed during the First World War, Murdo was killed in September 1916 during the Battle of the Somme near Martinpuich, his cousin William was killed beside him on the same day. James was killed in Gallipoli in 1915 fighting the Turks serving in the Royal Scots. (The stories of Murdo, James and William appear elsewhere on this website ).