Marching toward the Somme

[lauradi7dw]

July 1, 1916 was the first day of four months of trench warfare in that part of France for thousands of people, including famous guys like Adolph Hitler, JRR Tolkien, Siegfried Sassoon, and many others. Almost 20,000 Brits died the first day. I don't know the numbers for the other participating armies. The US wasn't involved yet, and I don't think I had any relatives in WWI anyway (my maternal grandfather was in the reserves, for some reason, but was never deployed). That doesn't keep me from thinking of it.
This exhibit
http://sciencemuseum.org.uk/visitmuseum/Plan_your_visit/exhibitions/wounded
(my kind of thing - I like to learn about medical advances that came from terrible events) wasn't up yet when we were in London last month, but I did see a nice photograph exhibit of then & now over the area of the Somme.

I saw mention of this on twitter as well, but thanks to sovay for the link:
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/jul/01/wearehere-battle-somme-tribute-acted-out-across-britain
The official site, with lots of images
https://becausewearehere.co.uk/we-are-here-gallery/
I knew the we're here because we're here song but had no idea that it was a WWI thing.
Youtube knew, though
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UA730QtjOBE