Battle of the Somme

[243ack]

1 hour ago, amateur said:

Usually Invacars, made by Greeves (the later motorcycle builders) or, less often AC (who otherwise made sports cars).

Horrible devices replaced for safety reasons by the Motability scheme.

 

Or 'Tippens'??

[islandgun]

21 hours ago, ditchman said:

i cant trace my history as it is so complicated...dont know who's where when..

i used to remember in the late 60's and early 70's i used to see loads of badly disfigured faces on the street in Lynn and in the little villiges not far from where i now live...on a sat night outside a pub near here were always a collection of invalid carriges..some motorised...them light blue ones with a 2 stroke engine and a sliding door and a tee bar for a steering wheel...and wheel chairs with bycicle pedals turned by your arms....and sometimes a wheel chair with 2 levers like a skid steer loader.

they used to meet up and get slaughted and play 3's and 2's....some of them wore black eyepatches semi hiding deep crevices slashed across their face and some wore a black leather glove....they all had limbs missing and the replacments were clonky metalic and wooden....they used to walk like they just got off a boat

me and my mate used to drop in the pub to have a swift half and pick some fags up....it would all go quiet when we walked in...and would only go normal when we left.....we were young and in our teens and thought these miscreants ...criples...were just a fact of life and a pain in the bottom...i wasnt well read at that time and just accepted that there were these people hobbling about and getting in the way..smelling of booze and stale tobacco...they seemed to be everywhere........

it wasnt till many years later i realised thro reading and education ..who they were....they were the remenants/survivors of either the norfolks or the anglian regiments from the 1st world war.........these young lads had been brutlised...ripped apart...slashed ...shot...sharapneled..bayoneted..slashed and infected by barb wire

and they survived.........and to this day im utterly ashamed at the way i veiwed them...everyone of them was a better man than i could ever be....they are all gone now...but i will always remember that time in my life

Aye I remember a lot of old men missing limbs and wearing medals when i was kid 60yrs ago. the few i talked to were often cheerful and seemed genuinely glad to talk to anyone that had the time for a chat.. RIP old boys

[ordnance]

Remembering the The 36th (Ulster) Division. 

Quote

I am not an Ulsterman but yesterday, the First of July, as I followed their amazing attack, I felt that I would rather be an Ulsterman than anything else in the world. My pen cannot describe adequately the hundreds of heroic acts I witnessed, the Ulster Volunteer Force, from which the Division was made, has won a name that equals any in history. Their devotion deserves the gratitude of the British empire.” The words of Wilfrid Spender, Plymouth-born newspaper manager, quartermaster of the Ulster Volunteers, general staff officer of the 36th (Ulster) Division, winner of the Military Cross for actions at Thiepval.

 

[39TDS]

On 02/07/2022 at 20:32, ditchman said:

i cant trace my history as it is so complicated...dont know who's where when..

i used to remember in the late 60's and early 70's i used to see loads of badly disfigured faces on the street in Lynn and in the little villiges not far from where i now live...on a sat night outside a pub near here were always a collection of invalid carriges..some motorised...them light blue ones with a 2 stroke engine and a sliding door and a tee bar for a steering wheel...and wheel chairs with bycicle pedals turned by your arms....and sometimes a wheel chair with 2 levers like a skid steer loader.

they used to meet up and get slaughted and play 3's and 2's....some of them wore black eyepatches semi hiding deep crevices slashed across their face and some wore a black leather glove....they all had limbs missing and the replacments were clonky metalic and wooden....they used to walk like they just got off a boat

me and my mate used to drop in the pub to have a swift half and pick some fags up....it would all go quiet when we walked in...and would only go normal when we left.....we were young and in our teens and thought these miscreants ...criples...were just a fact of life and a pain in the bottom...i wasnt well read at that time and just accepted that there were these people hobbling about and getting in the way..smelling of booze and stale tobacco...they seemed to be everywhere........

it wasnt till many years later i realised thro reading and education ..who they were....they were the remenants/survivors of either the norfolks or the anglian regiments from the 1st world war.........these young lads had been brutlised...ripped apart...slashed ...shot...sharapneled..bayoneted..slashed and infected by barb wire

and they survived.........and to this day im utterly ashamed at the way i veiwed them...everyone of them was a better man than i could ever be....they are all gone now...but i will always remember that time in my life

It was the same up here in Cheshire. The bus route home from town took us past what was a sanatorium for ex servicemen, they generally had bits missing and were terribly disfigured.

Must admit to not giving it much thought at the time, not sure that anybody did because it was just how it was. We weren't there and had little understanding of it and those that were never talked about it so how could we. It is only in recent years that it has dawned on me that they never spoke about is as they spent the rest of their lives trying to forget it. It strikes me how we remember them with the phrase "lest we forget" when I think that is exactly what they wished they could do.

[kevin55]

Into The Silence (about the first attempt on Everest) by Wade Davis has some interesting words from ex-soldiers

(The book is sub-titled The Great War, Mallory and the Conquest of Everest, pp 23-37 The Somme)

As I recall, without re-reading it, 1 was taken prisoner and was amazed to find German staff officers (red epualettes?) a 100 yards behind the lines, not miles like ours

Another recruited a regiment from Canada (Newfoundlanders?) asked after them and was told that 'they were gone'

Another, a surgeon, had won every medal bar the VC

 

[welsh1]

Shame on people trying to argue a political slant into this thread.
When these men went over the top they did not care what politics you supported or where you came from, they cared that you were there by their side.

Being a Sapper i remember all the Sappers who were there and fought and died,others will remember their local regiments and relatives who fought and died.

WE WILL REMEMBER THEM ALL.

 

‘I have a rendezvous with Death’ by Alan Seeger

The American poet volunteered to fight for the French Foreign Legion in 1914 and died at the Battle of the Somme on the fourth of July, 1916.  Seeger was reported to have been cheering on the second wave of advance as he lay dying from his wounds. ‘I have a rendezvous with Death’ was published posthumously.
 

I have a rendezvous with Death

At some disputed barricade,

When Spring comes back with rustling shade

And apple-blossoms fill the air –

I have a rendezvous with Death

When Spring brings back blue days and fair.

It may be he shall take my hand

And lead me into his dark land

And close my eyes and quench my breath –

It may be I shall pass him still.

I have a rendezvous with Death

On some scarred slope of battered hill,

When Spring comes round again this year

And the first meadow-flowers appear.

God knows ’twere better to be deep

Pillowed in silk and scented down,

Where Love throbs out in blissful sleep,

Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,

Where hushed awakenings are dear . . .

But I’ve a rendezvous with Death

At midnight in some flaming town,

When Spring trips north again this year,

And I to my pledged word am true,

I shall not fail that rendezvous.
 

[discobob]

4 minutes ago, welsh1 said:

Shame on people trying to argue a political slant into this thread.
When these men went over the top they did not care what politics you supported or where you came from, they cared that you were there by their side.

Being a Sapper i remember all the Sappers who were there and fought and died,others will remember their local regiments and relatives who fought and died.

WE WILL REMEMBER THEM ALL.

 

‘I have a rendezvous with Death’ by Alan Seeger

The American poet volunteered to fight for the French Foreign Legion in 1914 and died at the Battle of the Somme on the fourth of July, 1916.  Seeger was reported to have been cheering on the second wave of advance as he lay dying from his wounds. ‘I have a rendezvous with Death’ was published posthumously.
 

I have a rendezvous with Death

At some disputed barricade,

When Spring comes back with rustling shade

And apple-blossoms fill the air –

I have a rendezvous with Death

When Spring brings back blue days and fair.

It may be he shall take my hand

And lead me into his dark land

And close my eyes and quench my breath –

It may be I shall pass him still.

I have a rendezvous with Death

On some scarred slope of battered hill,

When Spring comes round again this year

And the first meadow-flowers appear.

God knows ’twere better to be deep

Pillowed in silk and scented down,

Where Love throbs out in blissful sleep,

Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,

Where hushed awakenings are dear . . .

But I’ve a rendezvous with Death

At midnight in some flaming town,

When Spring trips north again this year,

And I to my pledged word am true,

I shall not fail that rendezvous.
 

👍

[Vince Green]

On 01/07/2022 at 21:53, MirokuMK70 said:

I always think of it on this day. One of my bucket list items is to stand at 07.30 on 1 july at gommecourt salient where the 46th north midland division went over. One of the striking things for me is that though we always think of grim muddy conditions in connection with ww1 - the first day of the somme was a beautiful summer morning and they went over into that hell through waist high summer grass and wildflowers with skylarks singing overhead...

Many of the wounded on the battlefield died of thirst. Lying out there in the sun calling for water but couldnt be reached. My grandfather was on the Somme in 10th Btn Warwickshire Regt, part of19th Division. They captured La Boiselle on the 3rd day. then went on to High Wood.to dig the intermediate trench that allowed 47th Division to capture the wood.

Edited July 4, 2022 by Vince Green

[Vince Green]

3 hours ago, welsh1 said:

Being a Sapper i remember all the Sappers who were there and fought 

My Uncle Harry was Sapper Harry Green, no 3 Glider Pegasus Bridge. 249th Airborne Field Company Royal Engineers.(6th Airborne Div) 

They were then rushed across to the Ardennes forest to fight along side the American 101st Division in the fighting described in the book / film Band of Brothers.

Despite fighting tooth and claw along side the 101st all the way through that winter they never got a single mention in the book or the film. Just whitewashed out of the story.

In fact the 249th Historian Xavier Pradelles says many of the yarns "claimed" by the 101st were actually not them at all but the 249th

 

Edited July 4, 2022 by Vince Green

[Scully]

Lyn Macdonald wrote a series of excellent books covering the First World War. I read them many years ago; only one I haven’t read being The Roses of Flanders, regarding the nurses who served.