Battlefield Tours

 

School Resource Packs

Every person receives a booklet containing approximately 60 pages detailing and explaining the events and locations to be visited.

 

The booklet for each school is different, the content will vary according to the history and location of the school in the UK. Additions to the booklet may be relevant to a particular battlefield walk, visits to personal graves or the lives of former serving pupils.

 

It is not a work book full of inane and unnecessary activities or worksheets but a concise guide book with photographs, trench maps, battalion diaries and personal accounts to provide information for every step of a battlefield walk.

The left half of 'C' Company was wiped out before getting near the German wire, and on the right the few men who reached the wire were unable to get through. As soon as our barrage lifted from their front line, the Germans, who were sheltering in Dug-outs immediately came out and opened fire with their machine guns. Some were seen to retire to the second and third lines. The enemy fought very well throwing hand grenades into his own wire’.

 

NOTES: “A great many casualties were caused by the enemy's machine guns; in fact the third and fourth waves suffered so heavily that by the time they had reached No Man's Land they had lost at least half their strength. Whole sections were wiped out“.

 

“The German front line wire was found to be almost intact, particularly on the left. A few men of both 'A' and 'C' Companies managed to enter the German trenches“.

(Battalion diary extract Sheffield City Battalion July 1st 1916)

 

We will stand on the exact position where these events took place with the evidence of shell holes and trenches around us.

The booklet is contained in a clear waterproof wallet with pen, itinerary and additional notes. The Poppy Cross, Star of David or Muslim Crescent are offered to all members of the group for their personal remembrance. The school is provided with a wreath of poppies for an act of shared remembrance.

 

At several sites original photographs further enhance the experience by placing the group on the exact spot of the photographer to compare the historical image to the present landscape.

 

The emphasis on all tours is to interpret the landscape, discover evidence and bring history alive. Everything usually clicks into place on the afternoon of day two….

 

 ‘WOW! No words in any context can describe what I have seen today. I expected a shock but what I saw totally amazed me. It put questions in my head. Who am I? What am I destined to do in life? All horrors, tragedies, successes and triumphs just disappeared, being replaced by pure emotion’. Year 11 student

7:30am (time of main assault)

 

‘Barrage lifted from the German front line and first and second waves moved forward to the assault. They were immediately met with very heavy machine gun and rifle fire and artillery barrage.

A group standing on the slope of Sausage Valley near La Boisselle and listening the Second Lieutenant Turnbull’s account of his attack on the morning of the 1st July 1916 with the 10th Lincolns.

 

“Got as far as we could and goodness knows how many machine guns opened up on us. We all dropped and I started to crawl to the crater to see who was there, if any, and if we could get a rest there when I was hit in the back. Corporal Turton helped me in. A Tyneside Irish officer gave me a tot of whisky which cheered me up. Got a note from Lieutenant Hartshorn and 20 men to say they were in a sunken road in the valley near the Bosche lines and were asking for some help. Tried to get a runner back to HQ. Sent four but don’t know what happened to them. There were 50-100 wounded. We consolidated round the lip of the crater. I found my flow of language useful many times especially when the fit men wanted to bolt for it and leave a good hundred wounded who could not walk. I left the crater about 2.30 pm on Sunday”

 

A Company Commander of the 11th Suffolks

 

“My very last memory of the attack is the sight of Gilson* in front of me, and Company Sergeant Major Brooks* on my right, both moving as if on parade, and both a minute or two later to be mortally hit. Throughout the day little rushes were attempted by survivors, many of whom must have been already wounded. One particularly fine effort was directed by a dozen men against a part of the German trenches known as the Heligoland redoubt. They sprang suddenly, only to be burnt to death by a discharge of flamethrowers as they breasted the parapet. The sight of their crumpled figures, staggering back from the tongues of flame and smoke, tearing hopelessly at their burning clothes, and then falling one by one was terrible to behold”.

 

* both men were lost in no man’s land, their names are on the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing

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