The Battle of the Somme

Tomorrow is the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the Battle of the Somme, in which one million soldiers were killed or wounded. It’s hard to get my head around that number. The 36th (Ulster) Division played a pivotal role in the battle. “It was made up of members of the Ulster Volunteer Force, who formed thirteen additional battalions for three existing regiments: the Royal Irish Fusiliers, the Royal Irish Rifles and the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers.” (wiki)

The 36th was the only division of many Allied divisions arrayed along the 28-mile front to break through the German defences, leaving them surrounded by the enemy on three sides. Everything they gained in the morning (the battle began at 7:30 a.m.) they gave up by 11 p.m. that night. More from Wiki:
"The battle ended in mid-November. The Allies advanced 8 km and the British suffered 420,000 casualties, the French 195,000, and the Germans 420,000. The only success was relieving the French at Verdun. On the first day of battle, the British suffered 57,740 casualties, of which 19,240 were dead (the largest single loss). 60% of the officers involved were killed."

Such was the contribution of the 36th that Northern Ireland built a war memorial in Thiepval, France, the heart of the battle.

"The Ulster Tower is Northern Ireland's national war memorial. It was one of the first Memorials to be erected on the Western Front and commemorates the men of the 36th (Ulster) Division and all those from Ulster who served in the First World War. The memorial was officially opened on 19 November 1921 and is a very close copy of Helen's Tower which stands in the grounds of the Clandeboye Estate, near Bangor, County Down, Northern Ireland. Many of the men of the Ulster Division trained in the estate before moving to England and then France early in 1916.

The Tower (plus a small cafe nearby) is staffed by members of the Somme Association, which is based in Belfast.” (wiki)

There is a WWI memorial at Queen’s, at Belfast City Hall, in high schools, in every little town I visit. All list the war dead and it is amazing how long the list is, even in small villages. Many families lost three, four, five sons and many lost two generations. Radio Ulster has hosted a feature about letters from the front, written by 18- and 19-year olds to their girlfriends. It’s painful to think of such young lives being extinguished in muddy fields far from home.
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