From Caterpillar Valley Cemetery, follow the D20 east into Longueval and continue initially towards Guillemont.  Fork left to Ginchy.  The Cemetery and South African National Memorial are quickly reached.

Longueval was largely captured by the 9th (Scottish) Division on 14 July.  However, nearby Delville Wood remained in German hands.  On 15 July the South African Brigade, part of the Division, was ordered to take it.  For five days the South Africans conducted a bitter battle among the trees and water filled shell holes.  Despite every effort, part of the wood remained uncaptured when the South Africans were relieved on 20 July.  It was not finally cleared until 27 August.

In the fighting, the South African Brigade lost over 2,300 men and in October 1926 the South African National Memorial was unveiled in Deville Wood.  Today it commemorates not only the 10,000 South African dead of the First World War, but other major conflicts as well including the Second World War and Korea.  In 1986 a museum and visitor centre was opened near the Memorial.  Signs of the war are still plentiful in the wood.

Opposite the Memorial stands Delville Wood Cemetery.  Built after the 1918 Armistice, it contains mostly men killed in the summer of 1916.  Of the 5,523 graves, 3,593 (65%) are unknown.

Looking north towards the Memorial from the cemetery, it was in this area of the wood that Harold Cope was badly wounded on 7 August.  At the time of his death, Alan Lloyd’s battery was engaging targets on the far side of the trees.  Turning round, to the southwest of the cemetery is Trônes Wood, where Kenneth Macardle was killed on 9 July, and, beyond Bernafay Wood, the church spire of Montauban, close to his objective on 1 July.