The Somme 1916 & 1918

Ovillers. Somme. January 2005

Jon says,
“According to the Guinness Book of Records, The Battle of the Somme was the ‘Greatest Battle in History’. I first went there in 1977, after twice reading the evocative ‘The First Day on the Somme’ by Martin Middlebrook. When we arrived on that journey from Calais, we motored down the Albert Road and stopped at Bapaume Post cemetery. There I shed tears. The beauty of the cemetery and the sadness of the graves, convinced me there and then, that I would come back and visit  those lads as often as possible.  Most of the boys  died on July 1^st 1916, the terrible opening day of the battle, when the British Army lost almost 20,000 men, most of them killed in the first hour.  After finding a little hotel called the Relais Fleuri, we ventured up the Serre Road and saw the huge cemeteries either side of the road, which brought home the real tragedy of the Somme. Then up to sleepy Railway Hollow and Alf Goodlad, who thought the French, ‘A grand nation worth fighting for’ and worth dying for.  We were there for five nights and never saw another British visitor.  I had the Somme battlefield to myself and found my way around with Martin’s simple map at the back of his book. In the Newfoundland Park, I wandered around freely, exploring trenches and ravines. Practically every shell hole was full to the brim with rusting war debris, rifles, helmets, split open mortar bombs. Now it has all vanished.  The Somme draws you back there like a magnet. Whenever I hear a skylark, I think of the Somme. I have walked it and cycled it many times. I know it well.  It belongs to us.”