One Day in the World War I Experience

The Somme

The first day of The Battle of the Somme, was the most bloodthirsty in the history of the British army. Lasting from July to November 1916, The Battle of the Somme exemplifies the carnage of trench warfare and the impact of new technology. Underground mine is exploded, Battle of the Somme

Let Battle Commence

The Battle of the Somme began with the detonation of 17 mines along the Western Front at 7.20am on 1 July 1916. Lochnagar which you visit at the village of La Boisselle is the largest surviving mine crater from World War I.

Over The Top

With mis-placed confidence, the British generals instructed the troops to go over the top and walk across No Man’s Land toward the German defences. At Serre Road see where the Accrington Pals made their courageous charge, to be decimated in the first hour of the attack.

Newfoundland Park commemorates the loss of the Newfoundland Regiment whose men fell in such great numbers on July 1st. Their national emblem, the Caribou, stands howling over the battlefield where so many of the young of this tiny British colony fell to the German machine-guns.

Ulster Tower stands on the Schwaben redoubt and is a replica of the one where the 36th Ulster Division trained in County Down before arriving on the Somme. The Irish were the only British Division in that sector to achieve all their first day objectives. Find out why - and at what cost.

In Memoriam

The Battle of the Somme became a protracted struggle. At Pozieres Ridge 23,000 Australians died over 45 days attempting to capture the ridge in August 1916. At Beaumont Hamel stands a monument to the ever-glorious 51st Highland Division who finally captured the area in November 1916.

Your visit to Dartmoor Cemetery, small by any war standards, nevertheless demonstates that every soldier who died was an individual.

“This cemetery is like a book, each gravestone a page with its own story”.- an Edinburgh student.

Sadly, the bodies of most individual soldiers were not recovered. The Thiepval Monument, one of the more impressive monuments on the Somme, commemorates 74,000 of them.