The Somme, France

The 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme meant our visit to the Somme battlefields was particularly poignant. We had no idea how important the Somme is to the British people, it appears to be much like Gallipoli  is to New Zealand.

More than anything the memorials illustrate the total waste of life the occurred during World War One, soldiers killing each other for a cause they cared little for, a cause with no moral issues dividing the opposing forces, and a cause that would result in many of them lying forever on the fields of France and Belguim.
For five long months the Somme was hell, the Allied victory proving to be only temporary as the Germans retook all of the land gained in 1918, only to lose it again.
The battlefield is now rolling paddocks interspersed with small villages, yet it is not difficult to imagine the atrocious conditions the soldiers must have endured.
New Zealand has three memorials, Grevillers, Caterpillar Valley and Longueval. Caterpillar Valley was where the New Zealanders launched their offensive on the 15th September, 1916. Four days of intense fighting to capture the 'high ground' at Longueval and the village of Flers.
Caterpillar Valley is where the majority of New Zealand graves are situated and is where the remains of 'The unknown soldier' were exhumed and repatriated to New Zealand. 2,000 New Zealanders were killed at the Somme and another 6,000 wounded. More than half of the dead were not identifiable, literally blown to smithereens.
Overall there were 8,500 casualties each day of the 141 days of the battle including 19,000 killed on the first day.
Longueval is where our memorial is located, only about 800 metres across rolling paddocks from Caterpillar Valley. It is where a memorial service attended by Prince Charles and Bill English will be held on the 15th September.

Memorial video downloaded from youtube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuWiH4wPYi0

Caterpillar Valley Cemetary

 

Memorial with 1205 soldiers names inscribed 'As known only to God'

Longueval Memorial inscribed with, 'From the uttermost ends of the Earth'

 

Part of the Longueval Memorial with soldiers depicted in the silver fern

Longueval Memorial (with bus beside it) as viewed from Caterpillar Valley Cemetry. The ground between these two places represents the battlefield which New Zealand forces took on the battle of the 15 -20 September, 1916. This battle was the first time ever that tanks had been used in warfare.

Devil's Wood lies immediately to the east of the Longueval Memorial. It housed German forces. At the end of the battle not one tree was left untouched - see photograph below.

Devil's Wood, known as Devilles Wood before the war.

Tony close to the Longueval Memorial

The memorial gates to Caterpillar Valley Cemetary

 

Typical Somme landscape

Grevillers Memorial and Cemetary

Memorial in the village of Flers, liberated by New Zealand soldiers in September, 1916.

Inside the church at Flers

Flers main street

The rest of Flers

On the fields close to Londueval

Longueval

The British and South African Memorial at Thiepval. 72,246 names of British and South African soldiers are written on the walls of the memorial. As bodies are found and identified their names are removed. The memorial as huge in scale and resonates deeply with the sense of loss experienced on the Somme.

View from Thiepval

A New Zealand soldier commemorated at Thiepval.

The Ulster memorial, the only memorial to include a bar!

Gretel in the trenches at Newfoundland Memorial Park, a memorial that has preserved a small area of Somme trenches.

Not a German in sight, in fact nobody in sight - we later got removed for being in an out of bounds area. Should have realised as nobody else was getting a close up view of the trenches.

The Somme River.