They still hold the trench in which they were killed
The fighting started at 7.30am on July 1, 1916.
At the end of that day there were 60,000 British casualties – 19, 240 of them dead.
I have visited the battlefields many times and there are hidden places, even now, where you might think the war finished just a few months ago, such was the devastation from the howitzer field guns.
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Hide AdI took the photographs on this page during my various visits and they reflect some of the devastation wreaked like no man had seen before.
On the right is a photo of the magnificent memorial at Thiepval (pro: Tee-ep-val) designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens.
At 140ft high, above the level of its podium, it can be seen from miles around.
It was inaugurated by Edward, Prince of Wales on August 1, 1932.
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Hide AdIf there is just one place you must visit in your lifetime, go to Thiepval. It will leave you gasping and not without a tear.
It bears the names of 72,246 British and South African soldiers whose remains were never found. Just imagine that, seventy-two thousand men of whom nothing identifiable was ever found, lives snuffed out in a split second.
And this is just one of the many memorials around the Somme area.
The 7th Devonshires attacked the German front line on the first day of the Somme. It was alongside a wood called Mansel Copse.
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Hide AdFour days later the regiment returned to this location burying their dead – 163 of them – in a section of their old front line trench turning it into a cemetery. Ten graves are unidentified. A stone at the cemetery’s entrance bears the following inscription: ‘The Devonshires held this trench. The Devonshires hold it still.’
To be in this cemetery at sunset on a summer’s evening when the visitors have left and to be all alone with these men is a most moving experience which I cannot put into words.
n Don’t miss an eight-page supplement on the Battle of the Somme in The News tomorrow.