Just been reading about it, so sad, so many young people died, including my great uncle aged 21 along with 19,000 others on the first day. 400,000+ dead by the end of it. I had hoped we’d stick with a unified Europe to stop stuff like this ever happening again

Indeed a day for rememberance for what was a terrible day with many many terrible days to follow.

I won’t reply to your EU point specifically other than to say other views are available

Just watching BBC coverage of vigil.

My two great uncles both survived the Somme, mostly because they were snipers and spent the battle dressed up as dead trees or however the hell they concealed themselves in no mans land…

Grandfather was RFC and flew out there in the back seat of an RE8.

My sons band will be playing at the Menin Gate at the end of July as part of their tour of Belgium, and he’s just been told they have a three day tour of the WW1 sites in December, which looks really interesting.

Hopefully trips like this will remind the younger generation of the of the terrible waste that conflict brings.

My great grandfather and all of his platoon disappeared without trace on the first day of July 1916.

I WILL respond to the OP’s point about the EU, you are entirely correct. A united Europe is far, FAR more important than a load of bullshit posturing about identity by folks who have never known anything but peace.

This should be the headlines tonight – LEST WE FORGET

I saw a namesake at Thiepval but have never been able to trace the link.

Lyn MacDonald’s Somme is an excellent if terrible read. One book turned me as anti-war as can be.

You can find relatives here by searching family name etc:
http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead

Just said on the BBC, the Thiepval memorial has 72,000 names on it of soldiers who were never found

Lest we forget

The futility of it all still brings me to tears, even just those clips of different memorials just shown.

Interesting/moving words from Dan Snow re his great grandfather

That CWGC link is very good. We have several unusual surnames on both sides of the family, lots of matches – sadly – in both wars.

Please don’t let us ever get to this state again.

My grandfather was in the Seaforth Highlanders TA at the outbreak of war. So he was in France/Belgium from Oct 1914 until the end of the war. He was the only 1 of 4 brothers to make it home after the war. One got to within sight of home before he was drowned when his troopship sank on the approach to Stornaway harbour.

In all 174 Lewismen and seven Harrismen were drowned at the Beasts of Holm in sight of the Stornoway harbour lights with many bodies not recovered.

http://www.stornowayhistoricalsociety.org.uk/iolaire-disaster.html

I can’t watch this, i’m in tears.

EDIT. Yossarian, so so right.

irc – that truly is a sad tale.

And how many of those who survived the war were so weak that they succumbed to the flu pandemic just after?

I watched the BBC coverage this morning. The whistle that signalled the attack was truly haunting. We will never be able to appreciate how horrific it was

Moving service

Lest we forget – the words of Siegfried Sassoon November 1918

Reconciliation

When you are standing at your hero’s grave,
Or near some homeless village where he died,
Remember. through your heart’s rekindling pride,
The German soldiers who were loyal and brave.

Men fought like brutes; and hideous things were done;
And you have nourished hatred, harsh and blind,
But in that Golgotha perhaps you’ll find
The mothers of the men who killed your son.

If you are interested in reading further the historian who appeared on the BBC coverage with Huw Edwards and Shirley Williams has a book out on the Somme.

My grandfather was at the Somme apparently. I’m told that he had cousins on the other side.

My great grandfather was there at the start of The Somme battles, serving in the Royal Field Artillery. He’d already been fighting in France and made it to September 1916 before he was killed.

A few years back I did some research to try and find out more about him. I then visited his grave in France along with my mum and went to the actual location where he finally died. His story is probably not dissimilar to tens (hundreds?) of thousands of others, but some of the story is perhaps interesting in terms of what I managed to find out and see.

My Grandfather had asked me before he died to visit his Dad’s grave in France, so years later with that goal in mind, I visited the Public RecordsOffice in Kew and from looking at some of his service records and his units war diary, I managed to piece the following together.

David was born in Carlisle, Cumbria in 1883 and after a spell working in one of the local cotton mills and living at 24 Bridge Terrace in Denton Holme, Carlisle, he joined the army as a soldier in 1901, well before the Great War. It appears he may have served in Ireland during the early 1900’s and met his wife Nancy there, but there is no way of knowing for sure. He joined The Royal Field Artillery (service number 14213) and at the outbreak of war was 32 years of age. Unfortunately, many service records from WW1 were destroyed during the blitz of London in WW2, so it’s not possible to trace David’s complete service record in WW1. However we have a clipping from the Cumberland News, where his brother gives a report on David’s travels and exploits and notes some of the battles he had taken part in, in France. He comments that David had taken part in fighting near Arras in France where ‘His unit’s artillery guns had been fired continuously for 4 days solid without a break’. What we do know for sure from his records, is that by the late summer of 1916, after serving for several years in France, David was serving with The Royal Field Artllery as a Bombadier. He was in the 35th brigade, 25th Battery of the RFA. 25th Battery was an artillery unit consisting of 3 or 4 horse drawn gun carriages, a train of ammunition limbers, tradesmen, blacksmith, gunners and officers necessary to operate the battery and keep horses, men and guns in working order. The battery worked alongside several other batteries, thus forming a brigade unit. The main purpose of the RFA units was to serve as a cover for infantry in battle. In essence they would lay down sustained artillery fire on a target, village or trench system, so that infantry could then advance on the position, minutes after the barrage had stopped. By September 1916 the war had been a slow stalemate of battle for both sides for several years. It was decided that a major offensive would be carried out by the British Army on September 15th 1916, along a long stretch of the British lines near Albert in France. As well as being a huge advance, this was to be the first day in history that armoured tanks were ever to be used in battle. David’s battery was ordered to advance and wait to the south of a small villlage called Longueval. This area had a horrific reputation as next to the village is Deville woods, where in July that summer, seven thousand South African commonwealth troops entered the woods and were ordered to hold ‘at all costs’. After only one week’s fighting The commanding officer marched out of the wood to the pipes of the Black Watch leading two officers (both of whom were wounded) and just 140 other ranks remaining, they being the entire remnant of the South African Brigade, with over six thousand troops lost. My Mum and I visited the South African monument at Deville wood where there is a huge bronze frieze depecting the march out of the woods and where you can walk around Deville woods which have been preserved as a living memorial to those who died. A very moving experience. I can only imagine that by September 1916, the area was a wasteland of bodies, shell craters and tree stumps and must have been Hell on Earth.

On the evening of 14th Sept the battery was in position and resting to the south of Longueval. Near the men on the road to Flers, armoured tanks had been lined up by the roadside and were due to be deployed for the very first time. On the next day, David’s battery were due to advance to a position just to the north of Deville wood and the village of Longueval and start an artillery barrage which would then provide some cover for the thousands of infantry who would advance accross the open ground in an effort to take the village of Flers a few miles to the north and the surrounding trench systems.

The Battery’s war diary for 15th Sept 1916 reads; 25th Battery began to advance about 08.00 but were held up South of Longueval by order of The Officer Commanding 35th Brigade, who had gone forward to reconoitre the positions, seeing very heavy barrage on the selected position (T7a31) (Note – This is the map reference of the position where the guns were due to move to and start their artillery barrage) At 11.00 25th Battery (David’s unit) received orders to contimue the advance, the Battery eventually arriving in action about 12 noon. The Ground they traversed was a mess of intersecting shell craters and the guns were only dragged into position with the greatest difficulty and under still considerable fire. During this action the Battery suffered numerous casualties of men and horses and Lt. Benningfield was wounded. The 12th and 58th batteries (The other batteries in David’s brigade) followed and came into action on each side of 25th at about 3/4 hour interval. The 31st battery (A heavy howitzer battery in David’s brigade) came into action soon afterwards under a bank about S12 b65 (map reference) All Batteries suffered casualties both from shelling in the Longueval-Flers road and also in the valley itself. Battery commenders were soon able to engage several excellent targets including batteries and infantry in the open. Fire was observed from switch trench T1d12.

David was wounded that day and died the next day of ‘wounds’. He is buried in Grove Town cemetry, Meaulte, France. I managed to get a copy of a WW1 trench map from Sept 1916 and by using the grid references and a modern map, pinpoint the exact positions described. Visiting the field in France with my mum, the area described in the war diary is very small. The road from Longueval to Flers is only a mile long and the bank described in the war diary is still there to this day. It is possible to see where the three gun batteries were positioned at ‘on the selected position (T7a31)’ and also where the heavy howitzer battery was positioned by the earth bank. The field is now a farmers field full of wheat and other crops. We visited on a lovely summers day. With the sun beating down I re-traced on foot the route the battery would have taken, out of the village on the Flers road, alongside Deville wood and then over the field to a shallow valley where David’s battery was finally deployed. The walk is only 400 yards or so, yet it took an hour that day. Kicking the sandy soil, I saw the surface was littered with debris including dozens of small lead shrapnel balls scattered around, perhaps some of them left over from that day’s fighting. Later, talking with my mum we tried to imagine what it must have been like that day. With horses dead and dying and the ground in the state it was, the guns would have been disassembled then dragged by hand and using rope, block and tackle to cover the distance and then re-assembled for firing, all whilst under heavy fire from both troops and enemy artillery. Did he suffer his fate on the way accross the field or did he live until later in the day?

The next day I bought a book in a local bookstore and by a wierd co-incidence it had the following text which partially answered our question. — A Sergeant Carmichael (from an infantry unit) lay wounded by a rifle shot to his leg on the morning of Sept 15th 1916. He had sought shelter under the same earthen bank described in David’s unit’s war diary at S12 b65 (map reference) (called Rideau des Filoires by the locals) next to the Flers road and witnessed that morning’s events unfold before him. This is an extract from his diary that day. —- And now the stage was set for as thrilling a sight as I ever witnessed in the war. On the crest of the ridge appeared a team of cantering horses, dragging the first gun, followed at regular intervals by the others. the enemy was now fully alive as to what was going on and redoubled it’s shelling. Still the leading gun drew rapidly nearer, seeming to be miraculously immune. But it was on the crossing of the trench that the Boche had concentrated his barrage of grey-bursting H.E. mixed with shrapnel. When they came to where the roadmending had finished the horses were put to a gallop and the gun and limber bumped and tossed over the shell holes. Once or twice it appeared as if the force of the explosion had blown the whole lot over, but by some miracle the gun wheeled round beside us in the shelter of the bank – that is shelter from H.E. not from shrapnel. The other guns were not so fortunate. One had it’s limber hit, but somehow the gun was brought on. The four pieces were pushed round, the limbers unloaded of their shells and the horses spurred on for a hell for leather gallop back through the barrage up the road to Longueval. As one of the teams was just starting off, a shrapnel burst a few feet overhead. The front four horses fell and the remaining driver reeled in his sadle and came tumbling to the ground. To our suprise he scrambled to his feet, unhitched his two horses, remounted and went tearing off towards safety. Then the ammunition limbers began to arrive with their loads of shells. they suffered more than the guns had done. One team was knocked completely out of action at that fateful corner and the wreckage had to be rounded by those following. But wonderfully the guns were supplied with their stacks of shells and the empty limbers were off again, bouncing about like made things, with artillery men clinging like limpets to their precarious perches….Later on in the war I have seen field artillery going into action in the open and iin much greater numbers,…but never have I been so thrilled as I was on that memorable day in front of Deville wood.

Another thing that had puzzled me was how David had been fatally wounded north of Deville wood and yet arrived at a casualty clearing station at ‘Grove Town’ near Meaulte, some 5 miles away. A bit more study revealed that the army in fact had built a light railway in 1916 in a loop circuit to take ammunition and tanks to the battle and the dead and dying back behind the lines.

The whistle that signalled the attack was truly haunting.

Was lucky enough to get a part in The Accrington Pals with our drama group a couple of years ago, and lucky again to be asked to reprise sections of it for a commemoration last night. And yes, the sound of the whistles last night (and the thought of them right now) chills the blood and raises the hairs on the back of my neck.

#lestweforget

My Great Uncle died 100 years ago today on the Somme. I managed to obtain tickets for my Parents to go to the ceremony in Thiepval today. My fathers mother lost all 3 brothers in the first world war.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/01/wearehere-wwi-soldiers-appear-across-uk-in-moving-and-powerful-s/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

On the radio this morning they said that troops were killed at the rate of 8 a second in that first battle.

Just incredible.

That #wearehere thing is so powerful.

The ghosts of lives that were barely lived.

We want to Belgium to find all that remains of my great uncle whose name is inscribed onto the menim gate.
A small reward. It is a stunning building in what’s basically the worlds most dull countryside.
I was alright right up until the evening service when wreath laying service was an opportunity for the military to stamp about. It struck me that the building isn’t something they, the army of today should feel proud of. It should have been a shameful display of incompetence. And the marching saluting, shiny buttons shoes and the pride made me walk away quite angry. Not a reaction I expected.

Don’t blame the soldiers. They are ordinary people commemorating other ordinary people for carrying out the extraordinary tasks given to them by politicians.

Right now I’d swap a whole Parliament building of politicians for any one of those 1.3 million souls.

mikey-simmo – Member
We want to Belgium to find all that remains of my great uncle whose name is inscribed onto the menim gate.
A small reward. It is a stunning building in what’s basically the worlds most dull countryside.

That’s basically what Belgium was created for – a big, flat, featureless area for the rest of Europe to hold its wars on.
As regards the rest of your post, that’s how the military commemorates it’s dead and wounded, with full ceremony.
That’s always been the case, why expect anything different.
Of course, the leadership was often totally inept, and as a result the loss of life beyond imagining, but that’s true of all theatres of war, and on all sides; the total loss on both the British and German sides by the end of the Somme campaign were not that different.
The worst to suffer were the so-called ‘pals’ regiments early on, almost entire villages and small towns lost practically an entire generation of young men.
Desperately sad.

This brings home the sheer numbers lost, Rob Heard’s shrouded figure memorial of 19,240 individually wrapped figures laid out in one place, the first day’s loss of British soldiers.

http://www.thesomme19240.co.uk/product/the-fallen-framed-unnamed-figure/

True enough. Wasn’t able to tell what military regret looked like, I’m just not comfortable with the military around memorials to such utter waste. Didn’t expect such a strong reaction from me.

I’m writing this post from the back garden of my aunts house, in Topsail, which is a few miles form St Johns, Newfoundland.
Here it’s also Canada Day, as well as the day of remeberance of the exploits of the Newfoundland Regiment who fought at The Somme. The battle of Beaumont-Hamel.
Newfoundland was then under British rule and had a population of under 250,000 people (I think) and the Great War virtually wiped out a generation of their young men. There’s a link below should you wish to read it, but basically it was stupid decisions by faceless generals that killed these young men, much the same as the rest of the war.
I’ve been down in St Johns today at their remeberance ceremonies and it still haunts the people of Newfoundland

http://www.heritage.nf.ca/first-world-war/articles/beaumont-hamel-en.php

Not to take away from the horror and sacrifice however in 1916 the generals started their learning curve on attacking warfare. The British had to attack to take the pressure off the French at Verdun. Defence was mechanised (machine guns, barbed wire and concrete underground shelters plus the Germans had been preparing the defensive line for over a year ); attack was not. Too simplistic to just blame the generals IMO.
in a world where the ordinary man did not have the vote the battles of WW1 had more in common with the Napoleonic age where troops stood in line and were shot to pieces than modern warfare. The attrition rates per capita on troops and non combatants was actually greater in the Napoleonic wars than WW1, It was the presence of news reports and photographs that brought home to folk back home the horrors of the battlefield.

Get yourselves over to Ypres. Only an hour from calais. Go visit the menin gate and listen to the last post at 8pm, take it all in, its a very powerful experience, go have a nice drink and meal in one of the many bars then in the morning go to the extraordinary, fantastic museum they have (it’s not for the squeamish). Then take a drive towards Ploegsteert where you can visit multiple cemeteries, look for old family and friends. Then finish the day loading your car with some beer at Vanuxeem.

This my grandad Joe Brown holding my father in around 1934. Joe was in the TA when the war started. He was in the King’s Liverpool 4th Battalion and survived both the Somme and Ypres.

His service finished in 1917 and he went home. Two weeks later he joined the navy.

Stare into his eyes and wonder what horror they must have seen.

I went around a lot of it as a kid, it was difficult but went a long way to explaining why it was so horrific. Walking between trenches kind of hit home why it went so badly. The memorials the cover that area counting the cost will stay with me forever.