OF all the battles fought during the First World War, The Somme has a particular resonance for the British people.

Exactly 100 years ago on the morning of July 1, 1916, along an 18-mile front, 120,000 British soldiers climbed out of their trenches and advanced towards the German lines.

The carnage that followed that day has never been equalled by any other battle the British army has fought before or since.

A week-long artillery barrage, supposedly to destroy the German trenches, dugouts and cut up the barbed wire defences, proved mostly ineffective.

When it ceased, the German defenders emerged from their bomb proof shelters, manned their machine guns and poured a withering fire into the long lines of British Infantry inflicting 60,000 casualties of which almost 20,000 of those were killed.

This is the equivalent of every man, woman and child in modern day Barry and Dinas Powys being killed or injured in one day.

On the southern part of the battlefield, the 9th Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment advanced towards the village of Mametz.

A German heavy machine gun, hidden in a shrine at Mametz cemetery took a heavy toll of the attacking Devonshire’s, inflicting 464 casualties.

Amongst those killed were two Dinas Powys men; Sergeant Dick Kitch from Highwalls Road and Private Bill French who had lived and worked at Tile House Farm, Michaelston-Le-Pit.

Five miles to the north from Mametz village, the 1st Battalion Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers and the 1st Battalion Kings Own Scottish Borderers went over the top at Beaumont Hamel.

Here, at 7.20am the British blew a huge mine under the German positions at Hawthorne Ridge.

This alerted the Germans to the forthcoming attack and they were ready and waiting when the Inniskillings, supported by the Kings Own Scottish Borderers advanced towards them.

Losses in the two Battalions amounted to over 1,100 men.

Amongst them were two Barry men killed in action; Private Frederick Phillips (Kings Own Scottish Borderers) age 22 from Lombard Street and 18 year old John Streeter (of the Inniskillings) from Phyllis Street. John was a former apprentice at the Barry railways loco sheds.

(Sadly his younger brother Frederick would also be killed just two months before the war ended fighting in the Rifle Brigade).

Amongst the support troops waiting to advance, consolidate and man any captured German trenches at Beaumont Hamel were the 1/2nd Battalion Monmouthshire Regiment.

They came under heavy shellfire and Private William John Tunley from Ludlow Street, Penarth was killed on the northern end of the battlefield.

The London Scottish Regiment suffered 590 casualties attacking the German position at Gommecourt and it was here that Penarth man, Private Charles William Downs of the London Scottish was killed.

These six local men killed on the first day of the battle of The Somme would be the first of many.

The battle would rage on until the middle of November.

The names of Thiepval, Pozieres, Delville Wood and other killing grounds would become familiar to the British public.

In Wales, the taking of Mametz Wood, (against all odds) by the 38th Welsh Division was a matter of great pride but also sadness at the huge losses.

At least 40 men from Penarth and Dinas Powys plus at least 56 men from Barry were killed on The Somme.

Few of them have a grave and most are commemorated amount the 70,000 names on the huge Thiepval Memorial to the missing.

Total casualties, killed and wounded of the Battle were 420,000 British, 200,000 French and 500,000 Germans.

Walking the now peaceful fields and woods of the Somme Battlefields as I do every year, it’s hard to imagine the slaughter and suffering that occurred there 100 years ago.

The Barry at War Museum at Barry Island railway station houses several artefacts of The Somme Battlefields plus a British trench experience.

It is open every Wednesday afternoon, 2pm to 4pm and every second Sunday of the month, 11am to 4pm.

Information can be found by visiting www.barrywarmuseum.org.uk/

Alun Robertson

Barry at War Group