Battle of the Somme 100 years - 1916-2016

[CROONAERT]

A 'forgotten' aspect...

 

French naval gunboat (one of the smaller versions) on the Somme canal at Cappy.... 

[Seadog]

 

The Tank Museum Bovington

 

The original tank clock from tank D11 commanded by 2nd Lt H G Pearsall at the Battle of Flers - Coucelette in September 1916, the first use of tanks in war. The tank had to be abandoned after being hit by shellfire but Lt Pearsall removed the machineguns and continued to fight from a nearby trench, an action for which he was awarded the Military Cross.

 

Sadly George Pearsall died from Influenza in 1919 age 30 having survived the Great War and the first Tanks.

 

See the story of D11 (Die Hard) on this excellent web site

http://www.firsttankcrews.com/tankcrewsd7d12.htm

 

Bovington Mark 1 as originally displayed

Image

https://www.flickr.com/photos/glosters/4212453257

Photo album

https://www.flickr.com/photos/glosters/albums/72157627230263212

 

FEAR NAUGHT

 

Norman

[Ghazala]

Great pictures Norman.  Thank you.

[Seadog]

No need for thanks which are appreciated as I am sure that there are many interesting images out there like the one posted by Dave above. This is after all perhaps the main commemoration of the centenary given that this battle is certainly etched into the British  psyche.

 

Tank Museum Bovington

 

Part of the display of arifacts from the Battle of Flers - Coucelette in September 1916, the first use of tanks in war. The background is a trench map of the area of the attack. This is the Webley Revolver belonging to 25 year-old Acting Captain Arthur Blowers the commander tank D5 “Dolphin” that got further than anyone else on the 15th September 1916 and who was awarded the Military Cross for his actions that day. His Son relates that his Father was awarded the MC for returning to his burning tank to rescue the driver. He said that he sat in the tank all day firing the revolver at German Infantry; firing over 100 rounds he recalled that none of the targets were more that 10 yards away “so I didn’t miss many”.

 

See the story of D5 (Dolphin) here:

http://www.firsttankcrews.com/tankcrewsd1d6.htm

 

Photo Album

https://www.flickr.com/photos/glosters/sets/72157627230263212

 

Regards

Norman

[richardIII]

Hi again Norman,

I visited these two cemeteries (Sunken Road) in April, the access road is a very narrow, potholed road and dreadful for a non 4 wheel drive car. I was approaching the cemeteries very slowly when into sight came a quite a large lorry going in the opposite direction to me. I stopped and was about to start the long reverse when to my surprise, the lorry stopped, flashed me and he started to reverse, he managed to get well over into the side about level with the cemeteries and I was able to squeeze past. What a gentleman, I was well impressed.

Richard.

PS I wont drive up there again in a hurry!!!

[Seadog]

Caterpillar Valley & High Wood

 

The field of Gommecourt is heaped with the bodies of Londoners, the London Scottish lie at the Sixteen Poplars; the Yorkshires are outside Serre; the Wiltshires lie in Serre itself; all the great hill of the Hawthorn Ridge is littered with the Middlesex; the Irish are at Hamel, the Kents on the Schwaben, and the Wilts and Dorset on the Leipzig. Men of all the towns and counties of England, Wales and Scotland lie scattered among the slopes from Ovillers to Maricourt. English dead pave the road to La Boiselle, the Welsh and Scotch are in Mametz. In gullies and in sheltered places, where wounded could be brought during the fighting, there are little towns of dead in all these places.

 

John Masefield

The Old Front Line

 

"Only Remembered" - Coope Boyes & Simpson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyoJn8Ebb7I

 

Norman
 

[Seadog]

 

The Somme Barrage

 

Just a mere few of the British 18pdr Shrapnel shells fired in the preparation for the attack on the 1st July 1916. Over 800 18pdr guns were deployed at an average of one gun for every 31 yards of front. These fired primarily shrapnel shells containing lead balls more commonly used against infantry in the open and not for destroying the masses of barbed wire protecting the German front lines.

 

 

See this excellent article

http://www.longlongtrail.co.uk/battles/battles-of-the-western-front-in-france-and-flanders/the-battles-of-the-somme-1916/british-artillery-bombardment-before-the-infantry-attack-on-the-somme/

 

Model 18pdr QF Gun

More images of this model

https://www.flickr.com/photos/glosters/27651256662/in/photostream/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/glosters/27651411082/in/photostream/

 

The Shell

This image

https://www.flickr.com/photos/glosters/27138687414/in/photostream/

 

THE VOICE OF THE GUNS (1916)
Gilbert Frankau

We are the guns, and your masters! Saw ye our flashes?
Heard ye the scream of our shells in the night, and the shuddering crashes?
Saw ye our work by the roadside, the shrouded things lying,
Moaning to God that He made them - the maimed and the dying?
Husbands or sons,
Fathers or lovers, we break them. We are the guns!

 

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/greatwar/transcript/g3cs1s2t.htm

 

Norman

 

[Seadog]

12th Battalion Gloucestershire Regiment (Bristol`s Own)

 

First based here the International Exhibition 1914

The attack on Wedge Wood 3rd September 1916

 

The German postion near to Guillemont attacked by the 12th Glosters (Bristols Own) on the 3rd September 1916. Following an approach of one and a half miles in daylight over open ground the Glosters took the position but at a terrible cost for 329 of the battalion were either killed, wounded or missing. The attack was from Left to Right in the photo.

Old Comrades Plaque preserved in Bristol and the Memorial Cross near Longueval

 

Photo Album

https://www.flickr.com/photos/glosters/albums/72157640175670254

 

Norman

[Seadog]

 

The local men who gave their lives in this battle and who are recorded on the Roll of Honour in St Michael and All Angels Church, Windmill Hill Bristol

Link

https://www.flickr.com/photos/glosters/albums/72157626647032057

 

A short video taken in Bristol as a tribute to these men who left the city they loved to die in Picardy

Link

https://www.flickr.com/photos/glosters/27509915500/in/photostream/

 

 

Norman

 

 

[Gommecourt Lions]

They Gave Their Best You Know

 

We did our best you know?

On that smoky noisy summers mourn

When we fell like flakes of snow

On towards Gommecourt, hopes forlorn

Through wire, mud, shells and lead

We gave our best you know

As we pushed on with scores of dead.

 

The enemy awaiting, he did know

As we trudged our way forward

Led by Officers and NCOs like lions

On to Gommecourt Wood

That we would pay the price in blood

The waiting enemy he did know.

 

Those who better should have known

Tried to blame and poor planning condone

Said we lacked “The Fighting Spirit”

But, not many of us came home!

They wasted our best you know?

 

So here you all stand a century passed

From crooked spires, Pals proudly remembered

Credit given, real truth emerged

So now we rest in peace at last

Family, Friends and those amassed

You can all say now it’s ended

Those brave young heroes from here abouts

They gave their best you know

 

Ian Shaw June 2016

 

For Private 1853 Charles Gordon Shaw - Died of his wounds 11th July 1916 in Chester

1/6th Notts & Derby Regt Sherwood Foresters

Mortally wounded at Gommecourt 0845Hrs 1st July 1916

To be Commemorated 100 years after his burial at Christ Church Stonegravels Chesterfield 1400hrs on 11th July 2016

 

[Seadog]

Thanks for posting your poem Ian an appropriate tribute to those who fought and those who died in this "diversionary" attack which from this distance in time looks to me like madness and a waste of life and limb.

 

"... assist in the operations of the Fourth Army by diverting against itself the fire of artillery and infantry which might otherwise be directed against the left flank of the main attack near Serre".

 

Norman

 

 

[Seadog]

 

SERRE

 

 

RAILWAY HOLLOW

 

Accrington Pals - Mike Harding
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTpjOfEgPGk

 

REMEMBER THE PALS
1916 - 2016

 

Norman

 

[17107BM]

Hello all.

 

Have to say iv'e really enjoyed following this thread. Is enjoyed the right word?

 

Thanks to all that have contributed, look forward to more.

 

Gary.

[Mark Hone]

I have mentioned in another thread the forthcoming exhibition 'The Missing of the Somme' at the Fusilier Museum in Bury, about Lancashire Fusiliers commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial. An article highlighting some of the soldiers featured appears in this week's 'Bury Times':

http://www.burytimes.co.uk/news/14564352.Was_your_ancestor_a_First_World_War_hero_/

Among them is 2nd Lieutenant James Calrow Sharp, 2nd Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers, who was killed during the attack on Zenith Trench on 12th October 1916, aged 22. On this photograph of the Bury Grammar School First XI football team of 1911/12 James Sharp is the goalkeeper with his hands on the shoulders of the team captain. To his right, our left, stands full back Earl Singleton from Holcombe Brook. Corporal Earl Singleton 9th Black Watch was killed at High Wood on 8th September 1916, aged 21. He is also commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial. James Sharp's only sibling Donald, also an old boy, died serving with the Royal Artillery in 1917; Earl Singleton's only brother Gerald, another former pupil, was killed with the Cheshire Regiment at Passchendaele aged 19 and is commemorated on the Tyne Cot Memorial. Also in the team, sitting on the far left, is 1912-14 School Captain William Morris, who was seriously wounded during the capture of the machine gun position at the Pope's Nose, Thiepval Ridge in September 1916. His younger brother, Joe, was the last Bury Grammar School old boy to be killed in action in the Great War. William Morris's  successor as school captain, John Hartington is seated second from right in the same row. Attached from 2/5th LF to the Machine Gun Corps he won the Military Cross at Gueudecourt on 25th September 1916. He was killed in a German artillery barrage in July 1917 aged 21 and is buried at Lijssenthoek Cemetery. All members of the team saw active service in the Great War.

The long-serving headmaster, William Henry Howlett ( who never looks directly at the camera  in photographs) stands on the left. All but one of the 97 old boys killed in the Great War were pupils while he was at the school. He retired in 1919, after forty years as Headmaster -and died two years later, legend has it of a broken heart. 

 

[Seadog]

 

Newfoundland Memorial Park above Beaumont Hamel

 

Top to bottom
Caribou, symbol of Newfoundland
A trench at dawn
Trenches and battlefield debris
51st Highland Division Memorial

 

The gentle light that wakes me - Aly Bain & Phil Cunningham

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z36tHtzLVHI

 

Norman

[Seadog]

 

 

Beaumont Hamel,  views seen no doubt by many members but worth seeing again in this 100th anniversary year

 

First Image on a stormy Autumn day
View from the lip of the Hawthorn Ridge Mine Crater originally blown by the British under the German lines here on the 1st July 1916. The main British lines were to the left of the photo and the advanced line ( Sunken lane) follows the path of the trees to the right of the Memorial for the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders (White cross), the war cemetery is Beaumont Hamel cemetery where many of the Lancashire Fusiliers lie having been killed by machinegun fire from the German positions near the trees on the extreme right.  The trench lines followed the slope of the ridge known as the Redan and lead to Serre the scene of the near destruction of the "Pals" battalions on the first day of the battle.

 

Soldiers in the Sunken Lane prior to the attack

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmDXuRuoX3Y#t=27

 

Second Image in a misty Springtime
Looking from the opposite direction with Beaumont Hamel Cemetery and then on the ridge the trees surrounding the Hawthorn Ridge Mine Crater.

 

Beaumont Hamel was an objective of the first day of the battle but not taken until November 1916 by the 51st Highland Division.

 

Norman

[Fattyowls]

Two lovely photos of Beaumont-Hamel Norman, the second, viewed from the lychet beyond the cemetery is one that I've never seen before despite going there several times. It was the first Somme cemetery I ever visited and it has been special ever since. There is a very young subaltern called Elliot on whose grave now grows a lovely speedwell as you enter the cemetery, my garden is filling with speedwells just now in his memory, even if I can't yet get the same shade of blue as the one on his grave.

Pete.

[Seadog]

Thanks for the comment, there is so much history crammed into this area and even today after 100yrs the visitor can still get a sense of the momentous events that happened here way back in 1916. here is a link to the 18 year old you mention, another "young life ended".

 

http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/180739/ELLIOTT, JAMES HAROLD

 

This appeared in no mans land

Image

https://www.flickr.com/photos/glosters/4458961633

 

Norman

[Gareth Davies]

I was in the Sunken Lane on Saturday: it was a very flooded lane.

[Seadog]

Sunken Lane on a very bright day

 

 

Norman

[Gareth Davies]

Yes, wait out.

[Don Regiano]

Photo of grave of J Y Turnbull VC reposted at Norman's request.

 

Reg

 

 

[Seadog]

Many thanks for reposting Reg as it went AWOL after the GWF "updates" my post Lonsdale War Cemetery refers see post 86

 

This brave man rests here in Lonsdale Cemetery

Image

https://www.flickr.com/photos/glosters/15362909307

 

Norman

[Gareth Davies]

The Sunken  Flooded Lane on Saturday.

[Seadog]

 

 

Ancre British War Cemetery

 

Beaucourt Revisited

 

I wandered up to Beaucourt; I took the river track
And saw the lines we lived in before the Boche went back;
But Peace was now in Pottage, the front was far ahead,
The front had journeyed Eastward, and only left the dead.
And I thought, how long we lay there, and watched across the wire,
While guns roared round the valley, and set the skies afire!
But now there are homes in Hamel and tents in the Vale of Hell,
And a camp at suicide corner, where half a regiment fell.
The new troops follow after, and tread the land we won,
To them 'tis so much hill-side re-wrested from the Hun
We only walk with reverence this sullen mile of mud
The shell-holes hold our history, and half of them our blood.
Here, at the head of Peche Street, 'twas death to show your face,
To me it seemed like magic to linger in the place;
For me how many spirits hung around the Kentish Caves,
But the new men see no spirits-they only see the graves.
I found the half-dug ditches we fashioned for the fight,
We lost a score of men there-young James was killed that night,
I saw the star shells staring, I heard the bullets hail,
But the new troops pass unheeding-they never heard the tale.
I crossed the blood red ribbon, that once was no-man's land,
I saw a misty daybreak and a creeping minute-hand;
And here the lads went over, and there was Harmsworth shot,
And here was William lying-but the new men know them not.
And I said, 'There is still the river, and still the stiff, stark trees,
To treasure here our story, but there are only these';
But under the white wood crosses the dead men answered low,
' The new men know not Beaucourt, but we are here-we know.'
 
A. P. Herbert
Lieutenent Herbert served in the 63rd Royal Naval Division

 

Norman