Reflections of a Battle Field Tour
Phil Taylor & Chris Halsey
In the Picardy region of France on the road from Bapaume to Amiens lies the quiet town of Albert about the size of Witham. Albert is at the heart of a fertile farming district between two rivers, one the Ancre runs to the north and other to the south shares its name with the district; a name which echoes down the years as a place of unspeakable suffering _ The SOMME.

The Somme offensive which lasted from the 1st July to the 18th November 1916 took place along roughly 18 miles of the front just east of Albert, where for a gain of just 6 miles the British and Empire Army suffered appalling casualties. On the first day alone 60,000 of which 20,000 were killed.

 

A trench at Newfoundland Memorial Park at Beamont Hamel


Australian Memorial at Villers Brettoneaux		 For us, over 80 years later it is beyond comprehension that such a costly and futile event could have been allowed to happen, but happen it did, and today though the towns and villages have been rebuilt and the trees and the crops grow once again, evidence is everywhere of the tragic events of 1916.

We visited large impressive memorials _ to the South Africans at Delville Wood _ the Newfoundlanders at Beaumont Hamel _ the Australians at Villers Brettoneux _ and the 73,000 British and Empire soldiers with no known graves whose names by regiment, including many from the Essex regiment, are engraved on the columns of the British Memorial to the Missing of the Somme at Thiepval.


Previous page
Home