1 July
’Whatever was gained, it wasn’t worth the price the men had to paid to gain that advantage. It was no advantage to anybody. It was just sheer bloody murder. That’s the only words you can use for it.’
Corporal Harry Shaw, Royal Welsh Fusiliers
Today in 1916, by the end of the first day of the Battle of the Somme, 20,000 British soldiers lay dead and 35,000 were seriously wounded.
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