MALVERN Museum is paying its own tribute to those who lost their lives fighting for their country in the Battle of Somme.
Here is the venue’s latest Malvern Museum Monthly Column detailing the battle and the town’s connection with the battle.
ONE HUNDRED years ago, military plans were well advanced for bringing the war against Germany to a speedy end.
The last week of June saw a massive artillery bombardment of German trenches in the Somme area, north of Paris. Over 1.7 million shells were fired into German-held positions over an eight-day period, with the expectation that German forces would be killed or left desperate to surrender. British and French troops could then break through the German lines and begin to push the enemy back.
Among those in the British trenches waiting to go ‘over the top’ on July 1 were many men from Malvern, some serving with the Worcestershire Regiment.
After the whistles blew at 7.30am, Lt Frederick Wareham was one of thousands of officers and men who left his trench, only to be met by German troops who were very much alive and waiting to defend their positions.
Frederick Wareham lost his life that day, along with over 19,000 other British troops. Less than three weeks later his younger brother, Lt Laurence Wareham suffered the same fate. Both brothers had attended St Matthias School and had been training to be teachers, following their father who was head teacher of Leigh Sinton School.
Another casualty was Private Horace Boddington Gibbs. He was born in 1883 and like many men in the early 1900s, was drawn to making a new life in Canada. There he responded to the call to arms and joined a Canadian battalion, reaching France in June 1916. He was in charge of a machine gun team when he was killed three months later.
He sent numerous letters and poems to his family in Malvern, some of which appeared in the weekly Malvern News. Just six days before he died one of his letters was published in which he gave remarkable descriptions of life on the Somme: “I am alive and well and have just come out of a 48 hour terrific bombardment. It was indescribably terrible and wonderful, and we lost many a fine fellow. I would love to describe it all…of the pathetic and splendid heroism of our men; of the tense and wonderful excitement of it all; of the deadly work of the yapping machine guns; of the steady stream of wounded struggling past me in the trenches as I stood at my machine gun; of the screech of our grand artillery passing in waves of death over us.”
His machine gun team took a direct hit on 27th September 1916.
In fact 47 men from Malvern paid the ultimate sacrifice in the battle that lasted four and a half months and saw the first use of the military tank. Many of them are simply recorded on memorials in France, since their bodies were not recovered for burial.
This year, the museum has dedicated a small display to these men and Malvern Library is hosting an exhibition on the Somme. A Somme Vigil has been organised by Malvern Town Council at the War Memorial in the grounds of the Library on Friday July 1st. It will begin at 7am and anyone is welcome to attend this poignant act of remembrance.
