The memories of the Battle of the Somme that remained agonisingly vivid for survivors for the rest of their lives are being released for the first time by the Imperial War Museum to mark the centenary of one of the bloodiest episodes of the first world war.

The accounts include one British soldier’s compassion to a dying German asking for water and his mother, and a man who lost his religious faith after crawling across the bodies of the living and the dead.

They were among more than 500 accounts collected in the 1960s by the historian Martin Middlebrook for his book The First Day on the Somme, which was first published in 1971. He only used a handful in the book; the rest had never been published.

Pte George Richard Stephen Mayne, of the Royal Fusiliers, was 19 when he went over the top on 1 July 1916, and managed to get across no man’s land into the German second trench. The memory was undimmed half a century later.

“This German, lying, brought up his arm and actually saluted me. All fear of him had gone from me, and all fear of me had gone from him. I understood no German language then, but the poor chap kept muttering two words, ‘wasser, wasser’, and ‘mutter, mutter’. It took me a minute to realise he wanted a drink of water. The second word I could not have cottoned on to. I am glad to this day that I gave him a drink from my precious water.”

Charles Bartram was a 23-year-old lance corporal in the infantry. “We went most of the time on our hands and knees over dead and dying, from that moment on all my religion died. After that journey all my teaching and belief in God had left me – never to return,” he said.



Anthony Richards, head of documents and sound at the Imperial War Museum, said: “It is an amazing thing to get this wealth of first-hand accounts of the Somme a century after the event.” He found that the accounts were notably unsentimental and non-jingoistic, written at a time when records were being released by the National Archives revealing for the first time many failings in planning and organisation of the war.

“These are the words of men who have been thinking about these events for a very long time, and have considered very carefully what they are going write,” said Richards.

George Anderson was a sapper with the Royal Engineers, still haunted by swearing at a man who leaned heavily against him, his knapsack pressing uncomfortably, while they waited for the signal to advance: “But a bullet had entered his chest and it killed him. Somewhere in his body it was deflected for it didn’t come out of his back. And I had sworn at it – I couldn’t take it back and I couldn’t help him. God forgive me.”

Harry Woodhouse Beaumont, who served with the Royal Field Artillery, recalled the supply of rum. “Some added rum to their water bottles, which they did not want when later crying wounded.” He witnessed the gigantic explosion that created the Lochnagar Crater, and later took a running jump down into a German trench: “With all my equipment and Lewis gun I arrived with a hell of a crash right amongst a dozen Jerries who immediately put their hands up and said comrade.”

He also recalled the horror of the first aid posts being swamped with casualties: “Wounded lay in no man’s land and between the trenches captured but still under fire for days. The dressing stations and casualty stations were over whelmed and thousands of wounded men died who could have been saved with medical attention.”

He added: “Pte Jimmy Mitchell from Newcastle set a wonderful example in bringing in the wounded. No medals for Jimmy as there were no officers or senior NCO left to make any report.”

LCpl Tom Robert Short found the impeccably built German trenches completely unscathed by a week of British artillery fire. He hoped to get back to his own lines at dusk, but ended up facing a fixed bayonet charge by 20 Germans.

“In a split second before the moment of connecting my stomach with a bayonet at which I was nearly passed out with terror, a terrific shout of ‘halt’ came from somewhere, and knowing how disciplined the German soldier is, the bod coming at me slid flat on his back, his rifle shot straight up in the air, and his legs shot between mine.

“Another German used his own field dressing to bandage Short’s injured elbow, and a German officer led him into their trench saying: ‘Come along you men, you’ve done enough for one day, get down this dugout before you get hit.’ Short was eventually treated in hospital in Hanover, and a prisoner of war until the armistice.’

Middlebrook found the veterans through hundreds of small ads in local papers across the country. He sent them questionnaires, and in some cases followed these up with face to face interviews, but only the original responses survive.

He gave the raw material to an academic friend, and they have now been donated to the Imperial War Museum by the Felix Fund, in memory of Holly Angharad Davies, the daughter of the academic who worked for the charity and died young.

The accounts are being added to the museum’s Lives of the first world war site and Richards hopes families will add more details and images of the lives after the war of the men who could not forget.

