Monuments on the Somme Battlefields, France

The Ulster Tower is a Somme battlefield memorial to the men of the 36th (Ulster) Division. The tower is a replica of St. Helen's Tower at Clandeboye near Belfast, which was located in the centre of the 36th Division training camp.

The tower commemorates the heavy losses the 36th Division took on the 1^st July 1916 on the first day of the Somme offensive. Having faced a German stronghold at the Schwaben Redoubt (named Feste Schwaben by the German Army) they managed to advance their position about a mile almost to the German field gun positions, but had to fall back after counterattacks from the Germans. At the end of the day the 36th Division had suffered 5,000 casualties killed, wounded or missing.

This stunning Welsh dragon memorial marks the spot where the 38th (Welsh) Division set off to attack Mametz Wood on the 7^th July 1916 and suffered heavy losses. The wood was eventually cleared by the 14^th July but at a cost of over 4,000 casualties.

The memorial was the idea of Veteran Private Tom Price, who was wounded during the fight for the wood on that July day in 1916. Tom visited Mametz Wood in the 1980s and was determined that a memorial should be placed there in memory of the men who fought alongside him and especially those who did not return from France.

The 41st Division took part in the Battle of Flers-Courcelette from 15^th to 22^nd September 1916. Two brigades were involved in the launch of the attack at the centre of the XV Corps. They started from the British Front Line north-east of Delville Wood. Between the objective for the attack, which was beyond the village of Guedecourt, and the start point of the British Front Line lay the village of Flers, which had to be captured. Several tanks advanced with the British troops from Zero Hour, taking part in the first advance of tanks combined with infantry by the British Army. Flers was captured and a tank drove up the village street with cheering British soldiers.

The bayonet of the soldier standing at the memorial points to the west, the direction from which the new weapon of tanks arrived to take part in the battle.

A photograph taken from the rear of the memorial looking south along the village street features on the front cover of a very well known guidebook to the battlefields by the late Rose E B Coombs, MBE, and titled “Before Endeavours Fade”.

The memorial is dedicated to those who died when fighting with the 58th (London) Division and during the Battle of Amiens in August 1918. It is located close to the church in the centre of the village of Chipilly. The statue by the French sculptor Henri Désiré Gauquié (1858-1927) depicts an artilleryman cradling the head of his wounded horse.

The Australian Memorial is on the location of a windmill at Hill 160, situated at the highest point of the D929 road between Bapaume and Albert. The views across the battlefields from the site of the mill are magnificent. From the time when the German Army arrived on this part of the Somme battlefield in late September 1914 the mill was used as a German artillery observation post. It was damaged and finally destroyed in the spring of 1916 by the British Army during the build-up to the Allied July Somme offensive. The ground on which the original windmill had stood was captured by Australian forces in the Battle of Pozières between 23^rd July and 7^th August 1916.

The Villers-Bretonneux Memorial is the Australian national memorial commemorating all Australian soldiers who fought and died in France and Belgium during the First World War. The names of 10,770 Australians are carved on the memorial whose graves are not known. Their remains lie on the battlefields of the Somme, Arras, the German advance in the spring of 1918 and the 1918 Advance to Victory.

The Butte de Warlencourt is an artificial hill used as a location of strategic high ground in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1871 and again in the Battles of the Somme in 1916 and 1918. The Butte was full of tunnels even before the Germans fortified it in the First World War. The Butte was taken by the British when the German Army retreated to the Hindenburg Line in February 1917, but was retaken during the German offensive in March 1918. The British 21st Division captured the Butte on 25^th August 1918 during the Allied Advance to Victory.

The Butte has been owned by The Western Front Association since 1990. There is a memorial plaque and bronze diorama on the summit. Access may be restricted depending on the cover of undergrowth over the path and the views from the summit may also be limited by the trees.

The Canadian memorial commemorates the actions on the Somme battlefield by Canadian forces in November 1916.

On the east side of the Caterpillar Valley Cemetery is the Caterpillar Valley (New Zealand) Memorial. This memorial commemorates more than 1,200 officers and men of the New Zealand Division who died in the Battles of the Somme in 1916, and whose graves are not known. This is one of seven memorials in France and Belgium to those New Zealand soldiers who died on the Western Front and whose graves are not known. The memorials are all in cemeteries chosen as appropriate to the fighting in which the men died. The cemetery and the memorial were designed by Sir Herbert Baker.

Lochnagar Crater, is an impressive hole in the ground created at 07:28 on the 1^st July 1916 after 24,500 Kg of ammonal explosive was detonated underground. This mine and Hawthorne Ridge mine near Beaumont Hamel were the largest of 16 mines exploded on the same day. Most of the others have been filled in or are innaccessible from the ground.

The memorial is a caribou like the one at Newfoundland Memorial Park, Beaumont Hamel. It is one of five caribou memorials to commemorate the sites where the Newfoundland Regiment fought on the Western Front.

This memorial park commemorates the Royal Newfoundland Regiment which, along with several British battalions, attacked this area as part of the 1^st of July 1916 Somme offensive and suffered appalling losses. The land was originally bought in 1921 by Newfoundland and officially opened by Earl Haig in 1925.

The park contains three British cemeteries, some memorials, preserved trench outlines and a visitor centre.

Newfoundland Memorial Park

The memorial is situated in Grévillers British Cemetery. It commemorates 450 officers and men of the New Zealand Division who died in the fighting in this area between March and August 1918 and in the Advance to Victory between 8^th August and 11^th November 1918, and who have no known grave. It is one of seven memorials on the Western Front to the missing New Zealand Forces.

The memorial is situated at the Pozières British Cemetery. It commemorates over 14,000 British and 300 South African casualties who died on the Somme battlefield between 21^st March and 7^th August 1918, and who have no known grave. This was the period of fighting from the time of the German Army spring offensive on 21^st March 1918 to the next phase of fighting from 8^th August, when the Allies launched an offensive against the German forces on the Somme culminating in a series of successful battles known as the Advance to Victory. After 21^st March 1918 the British Fifth Army was pushed to the west, back across much of the ground that had been taken at such great cost in casualties during the 1916 Allied Somme offensive.

The Memorial Park is in the location of the British Front Line for 1st July 1916. At the time there were four small woods in this sector. They were known on British Army maps from south to north as Matthew Copse, Mark Copse, Luke Copse and John Copse.

Sheffield Memorial Park

The Memorial remembers the heavy losses sustained by the South African Brigade of the 9th Scottish Division from 14^th to 20^th July 1916. Out of over 3,000 men only 29 officers and 731 other ranks returned.

The memorial is on the east side of the D929 between Pozières and Courcelette. On 15^th September 1916 tanks went into action with the British infantry for the first time. The attack took place in the area of Flers east of the Bapaume-Albert road. The Tank Memorial has four scale model tanks from 1916-1918. Bullet scars from fighting in this area during the Second World War can be seen on one of these tanks.

The Thiepval Memorial to the missing of the Somme, bears the names of more than 72,000 officers and men of the United Kingdom and South African forces who died in the First World War in the Somme sector before 20^th March 1918 and have no known grave.

Thiepval Memorial to the Missing