A Special Post on the 102nd Anniversary

My great-uncle George, born in Suffolk, was discharged from the 27th Regiment in Enniskillen on 24th March 1876 and settled there.  I've often wondered whether, as he grew up, my father was aware that he had Irish cousins; I certainly don't recall his ever mentioning them.  George was some 16 years older than my grandfather, and had probably already left home when he was born.

One of those Irish cousins, George's tenth child and fourth son Henry, joined the 1st Battalion of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers (RIF).  His brother Samuel (almost three years older) served in the 2nd Battalion; it's not clear whether they enlisted together because their service records were probably destroyed by fire during the Second World War.  It seems unlikely, however, since Samuel died on 16th May 1915, and is commemorated on the Le Touret Memorial

In September 1914, as part of Kitchener's New Army, the 36th (Ulster) Division was formed by uniting three existing regiments, the Royal Irish Fusiliers, the Royal Irish Rifles and the RIF and supplementing their numbers with thirteen new battalions formed from the Ulster Volunteer Force. (The UVF had been set up in 1912/13 to oppose home rule for Ireland.)

The Division trained near the north Down coast, on the Clandeboye estate, part of the town of Bangor.  In 1861 the then owner of the estate commissioned a tall folly, which he named Helen's Tower in memory of his mother.  The distinctive shape of the tower, rising above the countryside would have been familiar to the soldiers, and for many would have been their last sight of their homeland as they left for England and, subsequently, the Western Front.

It had been considered that the men of the New Army were insufficiently trained and their battle tactics orders were more strict and regimented than those of the regulars. However, on July 1st 1916, the 36th Division disobeyed these orders and, during the heavy bombardment that took place before zero hour at 7.30, they advanced by pushing forward small trenches and cutting the barbed wire.  Thus, when bugles sounded the Advance' and the other divisions formed up in waves for a walk across no man's land, the Ulstermen sprang forward and rushed the German front line.

Had they followed orders and attacked under creep bombardment - intelligence being so bad - they would have come under bombardment from 'friendly fire' at the German front line.  Instead, the result was that they captured a long section of the enemy's front line.  Theirs was the only division of their corps to gain its opening day objective, which they did "by a combination of sensible tactics and Ulster dash", as one historian has expressed it.

Ulster Memorial Tower

In the first two days, the division overall lost 5,500 officers and men, either killed, wounded or missing; in the whole five months and more of the Somme campaign, the Inniskillings suffered the loss of 296 dead.  233 of these died on that very costly opening day, including my cousin, Lance-Corporal Henry Evans.

Those who died on the Somme but have no known grave are commemorated at Thiepval.  The site of the Schwaben redoubt, against which the Ulster Division advanced on the first day is marked by the Ulster Memorial Tower, an exact replica of Helen's Tower, near which they had trained.

(Much of the detail for this post and the picture, which is published under 

Creative Commons Attribution Harm@frielink.net at the English language Wikipedia,

has been obtained from Wikipedia.  Other sources include

the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website and personal research.)