| Remembering
the Bradford Pals |
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| Reconstructed
trench near Serre, 1974 |
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Eighty-seven
years ago, in the middle of World War 1, on July 1st 1916, 2000
young men from Bradford left their trenches in Northern France to
advance across no man's land. It was the first hour of the first
day of the Battle of the Somme.
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Sense
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POPPIES
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Scarlet
poppies grow naturally in conditions of disturbed earth.
The significance of the poppy as a lasting memorial symbol
to the fallen was realised by the Canadian surgeon John McCrae
in his poem In Flanders Fields.
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In
1974 a 麻豆社 North crew accompanied some of the surviving Bradford
Pals on what was to be their last trip back to the Somme.
A Bradford
Pal remembers the opening hours of the Battle of the Somme:
Half-past seven in the morning on the first of
July 1916, and the whistles were blowing and the shells were
coming over, and it was hell upon earth, and everybody dashed
out of the trenches and everybody was doing the best they could.
It was the machine gun fire that caused all the damage. It wasn't
the shell fire. And there were no gaps in the wire emplacements
and we had to find the best way we could, you see. The other
battalion had come over before us. There were so many dead laying
about and it was almost impossible because the other battalion
had come over before us. There were so many dead lying about
scattered all over the place. I was a member of the 18th West
Yorkshires, 2nd Bradford Pals, on that particular day and out
of the battalion strength of 800 there were only 147 left at
the end of the day. 
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