Source: File: British
Artillery, end of June 1916. National Army Museum. [online] See an original
image at: <https://ww1live.wordpress.com/category/western-front/>
[Accessed: 27 June 2016]
French roads from all ports to Arras and Albert
Buzzed - a Lieutenant
Liveing commented
On packed roads,
loaded with war articles;
Sandbags, wire
stakes, shells, trench mortar
Bombs with 'a thousand
articles for offensive.'
Lieutenant
Liveing had witnessed the great
Movements of
lorry columns, thundering
Along, with
signalers who weaved their
Motorbikes among
them, as full staff cars,
Frustrated, were
slowed by the military traffic.
Ceaselessly
rolling by were batteries moving
To their
positions, as caterpillar transports
Heaved out the
heaviest guns - endless
Lines of intent troopers and khaki sappers,
Moving out to
assigned tasks across the lines.
Surprise came
with gauge railways apparently
Appearing over
night - trees everywhere cut
Down for building
of gun emplacements
And dugouts - while miles
of water pipes were
Laid, ready to be
extended out across battlefields.
Lieutenant
Liveing told how miles of telephone
Lines were being
laid down into earth, while
Amidst greenery
dumps of ammunition
Bloomed - not to
forget electric generators
Power readied and
wells dug to feed pipelines.
Such grand
ambition of the operation could
Not go unnoticed
by the side opposite.
Lieutenant Steele, a Newfoundland
Soldier described
on 21 June, in equal
Manner, that Fritz
was seen to be very busy.
Over hours, night
and day the Germans
Worked - under
darkness reinforcing
Wires - in theory
their efforts had
Little matter, in total annihilation they
Would be crushed
by a creeping barrage.
The fact of
warning signs were being missed
By British, captured
Germans questioned
Stating how
their men were sheltered
In deep bunkers -
solid British belief had
Decided; nothing
could survive bombardment.
A coded alphabet
countdown had marked
24 June as U day
- but thunderstorms
Of 23 June
developed into a dull
Day of heavy rain - this then continued
The thunderous
air of deadly British batteries.
The following day,
25 June being marked
As V day gave
bright warm sun, there
Was no let up -
enemy dumps
Reported to have
exploded by RFC
Pilots, who shot down enemy balloons.
With W day 26
June intervals of sun were
Interrupted by
heavy rain - operations
In cutting enemy
wires were good -
500 shells fired
by every single gun over
Each day; the
countdown moves on a day.
Still hefty rain
tumbles down by 27 June,
Day X - shells
pummel chalky ground
Adding to dank
mist of the Somme -
The storms of
steel continue to add
To waiting
enemy’s sombre entrapment.
Only at Loos had
such concentration
Of gunnery exploded
at the enemy.
Now the fourth
army held twice
As many guns; 32
4.7'' guns against
12 at Loos - 36
6' Howitzers now 104.
The thunderous
roll carried northwards
Across the
western front as a Royal
Fusilier Officer,
Stanley Spencer,
Told of a sky, lit
by flashes to cause
Earth below to
rise, fall and shudder.
Evidence of sound
and deadly sights
Could have not
been previously
Imagined -
darkness slashed
By hesitant
lights - any grounded
Object, a flickering
chaotic silhouette.
One bright slash
of light against another.
Stark flashes emitted from crashing
Shells in a
violent competition -
Those cursing
cries of explosions,
Carried by wind to
be heard in London.
Shell after
shell after shell, fired in all
Capacities - the spent
canisters
Discarded into
thrown metal
Mountains; useless heaps of husks.
Order kept by
officers with neat charts.
An observer,
American war Journalist
Frederick Palmer,
compared sight
Of cost - one
shell that killed
Could give funds
to send a youth
To college for a
year, or raise a child.
Any act of extravagance
was curtailed,
As every shell was accounted
for -
How by the end of
one day,
The simmering
crop of spent shells
Could have funded
a maternity hospital.
by Jamie Mann.
Source:
File: The Great War 1914-1918. The
Battle of the Somme, 1916. Online. Available at:
<http://www.greatwar.co.uk/battles/somme-1916/> [Accessed 27 June 2016]
Source: File: The Long, Long trail. The British Army In The
Great War of 1914-1918. Logistical
preparations necessary before the Somme offensive, 1916. Online. Available at: <http://www.longlongtrail.co.uk/battles/battles-of-the-western-front-in-france-and-flanders/the-battles-of-the-somme-1916/logistical-preparations-necessary-before-the-somme-offensive-1916/> [Accessed 27 June 2016]
Source: File: WWI
Centennial: Somme Bombardment Begins. Online. Available at:
<http://mentalfloss.com/article/82214/wwi-centennial-somme-bombardment-begins> [Accessed 27 June 2016]
WWI Centennial:
Somme Bombardment Begins
Mann, J., 2016. 100 years Ago - Poems by Jamie Mann. [letter] (Personal
communication, 27 June 2016).
#WW1 #WW1centenary #GreatWar #WW1poem #GreatWar #WW1centenary
#worldwarone #worldwaroneremembered #WW1Somme
