Memorials at Thiepval and Arras
Prince of Wales and Lord Trenchard at Whitsun Ceremonies.
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Vol. 6, No. 2 Published Quarterly April, 1932.
"MISSING" IN SOMME BATTLES.
(Specially contributed to the Ypres Times by Henry Benson, M.A.).
THE names of 108,979 soldiers of the British Empire, missingin the
Great War, are commemorated on the memorials erected by the Imperial
War Graves Commission at Thiépval and Arras, respectively, on the old
western front battlefields. Each has taken more than two years to construct
and they will stand for all time as visible monuments of an Empire's gratitude to
its Glorious Dead.
The Largest British War Memorial.
The Thiépval Memorial, which commemorates in all 73,077 names, is approxi
mately twice the size of Menin Gate and records 20,coo more names on its panels.
It is the largest of the chain of twenty-one British Memorials to the missing
in France and Belgium, which extends from the Channel to the outskirts of Paris.
As a Battle Memorial it bears witness to the fighting on the Somme in 1916;
whilst, as a memorial to the dead, it covers the fighting in that area from
July, 1915, to March 20th, 1918the eve of Ludendorff's spring offensive.
It is to be unveiled by the Prince of Wales on Whit-Monday, May 16th, in the
presence of M. Doumer, the President of the French Republic.
Thousands of gallant men from all parts of the British Empire fell in the battle
of July 1st, 1916, onwards, when thirteen British infantry divisions manned the
front line. This was the greatest Anglo-French offensive of the war to that date.
The British Army which attacked on the Somme on that day was the flower of our
young manhood, and fought with a gallantry that moved the enemy to admiration.
Never before had the ranks of a British Army on the field of battle contained
the finest of all classes of the nation in physique, brain and education. Moreover,
they mere volunteers, not conscripts. On the first day our losses were 60,000;
and in the whole battle, from July to the end of November, they were returned
at 419,654. The Germans have frequently expressed the opinion that their own
