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Return to the Somme Author and historian Warren Sommer revisits the most infamous battlefield of the First World War WARREN SOMMER Times Contributor
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rouched in his battalion’s frontline trench, 25-year-old Sid Boundy glanced at his watch, his stomach in a knot. It was 7:20 a.m. on July 1, 1916. The rain had stopped and the mist that rose from the warming, churned-up soil promised a brighter and warmer day. But the day was anything but peaceful. Though sited far to the rear, the thunder of the army’s heavy guns was nothing short of deafening. Shells shrieked incessantly overhead and landed in the enemy’s front line, the smoke from their explosions all but obscuring a scene of utter devastation. With every flash the acrid stench of yet more cordite filled the air. The artillery barrage had begun a week before, but this morning it was different. At 6:25 a.m. the artillery’s rate of fire had increased, a clear signal that something momentous was in the offing. A tremendous roar abruptly rent the air and the earth began to shake. Deep under the enemy’s front lines, 40,000 pounds of high explosives erupted in a Warren SOMMER/Times Contributor massive cloud of smoke and fire. Tons of Massed graves of Canadian soldiers at the Somme’s Adanac Cemetery. West Langley’s Private Ernest Moody lies in the soil and shattered bodies rose and filled first row, his tombstone marked by a Canadian flag. the sky, then settled back to earth. As perished in the ensuing explosions, astounding 1.7 million shells had been hand-held whistles, signalling the start one witness recalled: their bodies ripped apart, incinerated, or hurled at the enemy lines — more shells of the infantry’s attack. Sid doubtless “The ground where I stood gave buried under tons of steaming earth. than had been fired during the first full tensed. Scheduled to join the second a mighty convulsion. It rocked and The Battle of the Somme had begun year of war. The artillery bombardment, wave of attacking soldiers, he watched swayed. I gripped hold of my tripod to it was felt, would destroy the Germans’ as the men of his regiment’s 9th steady myself. Then for all the world like at last. Assigned to the 8th Battalion of the trenches, bury their protective dugouts, Battalion climbed from the front line a gigantic sponge, the earth rose high Devonshire Regiment, Sid Boundy was shatter their concrete machine gun trench. in the air to the height of hundreds of a seasoned soldier, having survived bunkers, and rip their barbed wire Armed with the British Army’s feet. Higher and higher it rose, and with to shreds. Those few Germans who standard Lee-Enfield rifle, each was a horrible grinding roar the earth settled the disastrous Battle of Loos some 12 months earlier. Mines had also been survived would be deeply demoralized, heavily laden with 66 pounds of back upon itself, leaving in its place a used at Loos, but with nowhere near flee in terror, or even be driven mad. equipment. With such a weight on their mountain of smoke.” the same effect as on the Somme. Nor The British infantry would have an easy backs, it was no easy task to walk down Then, the dust began to settle, slowly had the previous year’s artillery barrage time of it, having little more to do than the shell-pocked slopes of Mansel Copse revealing a massive crater some 140 been anywhere near as heavy. The stroll across No Man’s Land and occupy and out into No Man’s Land. Dozens of metres long and 25 metres deep. Battle of Somme, the generals promised, the enemy’s abandoned positions. other units rose simultaneously from a Ten minutes later, the scene was As the sound of the exploding mines series of trenches that spanned the 30 repeated further down the line as British would finally break the stalemate on the Western Front. began to cease, officers up and down soldiers continued to detonate a further During the previous week, an the British lines began to blow their 18 mines. Thousands of German soldiers continued, PAGE 10
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