In a remarkable exercise spanning 15 years, the last survivors of the Great War were interviewed on film.

These are unique stories of courage, sacrifice, and tragedy told by the men who were there.

These extraordinary interviews have been brought together for the first time.

In this film, we hear from the veterans who survived one of the most infamous battles of the entire war, the Battle of the S.

I’m like this in the trench with a cigarette.

My last cigarette in me fingers and I was like that.

I don’t mind telling you.

All feelings of humanity leaves you when when you’re fighting.

You’ve got no failings of humanity, right? Then afterwards, yes, perhaps.

These are the last voices of World War I.

On the Western Front, 1916 began as the previous year had ended, in stalemate.

Both Allied and German forces lay holed up in fortified trenches which stretched from the Belgian coast to the Swiss Alps, and attempts by either side to break the deadlock had proven ultimately unsuccessful.

In Sir Douglas Hey, however, the British army had a new commanderin-chief, and he quickly began planning the big push that he hoped would prove decisive.

After much deliberation, it was agreed that the British would support the French in a mass attack on German positions along a 25m front north of the river Song.

These plans were quickly thwarted, however, when German forces attacked the French fortress town of Verdan.

As French divisions were hastily transferred to protect the town, the burden of responsibility on the Som fell to the British.

In this rolling, chalky landscape, the Germans had dug deep, wellprotected defenses in the high ground.

Breaking through these positions would be difficult and dangerous.

But for some of those who’d been in the front lines for over a year, the big push couldn’t come soon enough.

21-year-old Londoner Richard Hawkins was an officer in the Royal Fuseliers.

People said that Hey was wrong in in making us go and fight the enemy.

Damn it.

We couldn’t sit there forever.

You got to get on with the job.

The French had been badly very nearly knocked out and we got to go get a job and kill the to kill the Germans.

The date of the offensive was originally set for the 29th of June, but owing to bad weather, it was postponed to the 1st of July.

A week before, the biggest artillery bombardment in history opened up on the Western Front as over a million and a half shells rained down on German positions.

In preparation for the attack, more men from Kitchener’s Volunteer Army arrived in France to take up positions in the front line.

Among them was 21-year-old Tom Dwing from Norfolk.

We were all convinced that this was the push which was to which was to end the war.

We were certainly very impressed with the thunder of the guns because it started all at once and terrific and it went on and on and on.

Thunder, thunder, thunder.

With a practice here, you could you could pick out the individual types of gun firing.

The bombardment was intended to shatter both the German defenses and the will of the defenders.

According to the plans, once the shelling had stopped, the infantry would be able to advance across no man’s land with ease, opening up routes for the cavalry to exploit at will.

19-year-old infantryman Arthur Wagstaff had complete confidence in the British plans.

Our instructions the previous day of course were that when you make the attack tomorrow morning, don’t run uh walk across.

We we believed that our bombardment of the German front line would be knocking out quite a lot of German troops.

So hopefully when we got there, there wouldn’t be many there.

The attack would begin at 7:30 a.

m.

with wave after wave of men going over the top along a 25m front.

Despite the overwhelming sense of confidence, as zero hour approached, even the most eager of officers began to feel some degree of trepidation at the task ahead.

You couldn’t help being a bit frightened, I think.

But you you you couldn’t show it.

Got to bottle it up.

You were surrounded with a lot of damn good chaps.

They were all damn good fellas out to fight for their country.

Kitchener said, “Your king and country [music] needs you.

” And we were out at the first you get got shot.

Well, that’s too bad.

As they waited with anticipation for the attack to begin, few could have any idea that in the hours that followed, they would become embroiled in the bloodiest day in the history of the British army.

On the morning of July the 1st, 1916, over 120,000 British troops waited for the signal that would launch perhaps the most infamous battle in history, the Battle of the Song.

A week-long artillery bombardment had sent shrapnel, high explosive, and poisoned gas shells along a 25m stretch of the German lines.

The ground assault that was to follow was expected to be a walkover.

Such was the confidence of British generals in a swift breakthrough that cameras were allowed to record the events for cinema goers back home.

But as zero hour approached, there were none of the usual images of happy men grinning for the cameras.

These Lanasher fuseliers had every reason to look afraid.

Little did they or the majority of frontline troops know, but the week-long bombardment had failed to destroy the German defenses.

Instead, the enemy sheltered deep within their fortified dugouts, and with machine guns and rifles at the ready, they waited.

They couldn’t know it, but within the next half an hour, nearly all these men would be dead or wounded.

As the big guns fell silent and troops in the front line readied themselves for the attack, a series of huge mines were detonated [music] close to German positions to destroy enemy strongholds and provide shelter for the advancing troops.

Just 2 minutes later, the battle of the song would begin.

From his vantage point on high ground, signaler Tom Dwing watched as the catastrophic events of the day began to unfold.

I remember the mine going up.

We had been told beforehand that it was going up and there was a terrific explosion.

The whole ground shook and that came a few seconds after the after the explosion itself.

At 7:30 a.

m.

, the whistles blew to begin the attack.

And along the length of the front line, men scrambled over trench parapits and made their way towards the German lines.

Within minutes, thousands were cut down by German machine gun fire and shrapnel.

At the northern end of the line, Arthur Wagstaff went over the top with the 56th London Division near the village of Gonor.

As soon as we got the instructions to jump over the top, we went and company Sergeant Major was sitting on the parapet and yelling to the boys, “Go on, boys.

Over the top, over the top.

And then as I came up into the trench, I could see two or three of our fellas, including two brothers who were lying dead in the tent.

They had been killed, of course, by the German gunfire.

Then we looked looked along the line and we realized there were very few of us left.

In these woods further south, the Lonsdale battalion prepared to advance across this open ground to attack a German strong point known as Muk Farm.

22-year-old Fred Francis was amongst those waiting for the attack to begin.

At zero hour when we filed out of this wood the colon ped me on the back said good luck son but we were literally sitting ducks they just m down like grass in the hay Shortly after 7:30 a.

m.

, signaler Tom Dwing looked out across this valley as men from the 34th Division made their way across the sloping ground towards the German front line.

In the first place, there was a certain amount of mist.

And then when you add to that the um enormous amount of smoke from the from the barrage, a great deal was hidden.

When the mist cleared and the smoke cleared, we were able to see the infantry going forward.

In some cases, they didn’t get very far.

They were just wiped out.

Seconds after leaving the safety of these woods, Fred Francis was shot in the hip by machine gun fire as all around him his colleagues were being moaned down.

And I dropped on my face.

I put me steel helmet on the back of my head and I could hear the shel dropping on me steel helmet.

I just said to myself, this is the this is the last battalion.

There’ll be no battalion left after this.

And there wasn’t.

Never has been.

I’m the only survivor, I think, of the original launch battalion.

With so many casualties lying wounded in no man’s land, the job of stretcherbearers was dangerous and exhausting.

But in the heat of the battle, they had little time to reflect on the precariousness of their situation.

20-year-old traveling salesman Joe Yarwood had joined the Royal Army Medical Corps after being handed a white feather, the symbol of cowardice.

He was proving his bravery now.

you were just working like an automaton, you know, you got to keep going backwards and forward and you didn’t bother to think a lot about things.

It’s true.

You know, if you’re uh got something on your mind, we our job was to get rid of these people as quickly as possible.

It was simply simple as that.

Keep going.

Keep going.

Keep going.

[music] The first one I took out with the poor fellow shot through the head and we had to lift him down onto a stretcher and then take him off.

And it was a very uncomfortable feeling because they got this fellow right to the head and we were expecting any part of our body any minute.

We finally got the poor fella down and one fell was walking behind hanging on to his wrist because we found that there was a tendency for them to snatch their bandage off.

And when we put him down, what did he do? And I, like a silly fool, had felt sorry for the poor fell and I put my tunic under him and I had his brains and he then to show a bit of encouragement vomited all over my tunic.

And uh well anyway we carried the poor devil out.

I made inquiries about him subsequently and it was alleged by his comrades of his particular regiment that he was walking about Bradford or wherever he came from with a plate in his head.

But it wasn’t all bad news that morning.

Significant advances were made in the southern sector where Richard Hawkins went over the top.

We moved up into the frontline church.

Every man was given a packet of wood binds.

Stupid thing to say, but I went over smoking a number 11 and that sort of os.

I don’t know why, but it doesn’t matter.

And um zero I was 7:30.

I think it was lovely morning.

And over the top we went and actually we had um a very good day.

Manchesterers were on our right were held up and somebody else on our left was held up and that’s why we had to stop really otherwise some idiots said we would have walked straight through the Berlin.

However, successes like this were sadly few and far between.

By the end of the first day, nearly 20,000 British men were killed and over 40,000 wounded.

It remains the bloodiest day in the history of the British army.

Arthur Wagstaff spent the entire day in a shell hole pinned down by machine gun fire only to emerge after the hours of darkness.

Most of his battalion had been lost.

We considered we we were lucky as we went down the communication trench to this tiny village.

We reckoned we were lucky to have survived that day because it was a terrific slaughter for those that did survive.

Hearing the battalion roll call at the end of that day was devastating.

How can you describe seeing a mere handful of men come where you where you you were used to seeing a battalion? And we weren’t the only ones who felt sick.

The colonels were sitting in front of what was left of their men sobbing.

There were so few so few men left.

In the days that followed, exhausted troops waited for fresh orders as the full scale of the catastrophe began to sink in.

But to press home even the smallest of victories, the battle had to continue.

[music] and General Hey and his French counterparts agreed to consolidate their action in the southern sector of the line where advances had been made.

Meanwhile, fresh troops were sent up to the front line to take the place of those who had been killed.

It was a fact not lost on 19-year-old officer Norman Collins from Hartley who arrived [music] on the song with the Seaforth Highlanders.

You knew the you knew by that time the full horrors the horrors of the war.

We were replacing casualties.

So every for every person who went out to replace a casualty, he knew that somebody had either died or was in the hospital.

We’re fully aware of that.

19-year-old Archie Richards from Cornwall arrived on the SOM in late summer, part of a highly trained group of men at the heart of a top secret plan aimed to smash the German lines.

As his unit moved forward, the sights [music] that awaited him were horrific.

In many parts of the front, the dead from the previous days and weeks of fighting still lay where they had fallen.

We were moving up and uh we had to go over uh the old trenches, the old trenches and bodies and everything else, you know.

And then the stink.

The smell was terrible.

Terrible.

And it was hot.

Arms and legs sticking out of trenches and all this sort of stuffing out of the Yeah.

rotting bodies.

Oh, terrible.

But for men like 20-year-old Robbie Burns from Glasgow, who’d been at the front since 1915, these horrors were now part of everyday life.

Yeah, we know what it’s like now.

You know what it’s like.

You know what it’s like to sleep.

You know what it is like to eat.

You know what it is like to go over the top.

Oh, yes.

No doubt about it.

you get hard and sometimes done and you wonder all the time when it’s going to finish.

When is it going to finish and you’re hoping you get a blighty one somewhere? It’s not serious.

Some men were so desperate to escape the action.

They would do anything to get a blighty wound.

An injury not bad enough to be life-threatening, but which would require treatment back home.

The chappie is sitting next to me lying on his stomach.

His legs up in the air like that.

He’s lying down there.

His legs up in the air.

I said, “Keep your legs down.

” “Why?” I said, “You’ll get shot.

” He said, “I want shot.

” I said, “Why?” They said, “Well, I want one in the leg.

Then I’ll get one from Blighty.

I won’t need to go any further.

I want wounded.

I want wounded in the leg.

I don’t want to stand up and get shot this summer.

” They looking for a wound in his leg.

I said to this chap here, he said, “A good idea that he did the same.

” He just laying his tongue with his legs up in there like that, hoping to get a bullet in so that he wouldn’t have to go any further.

The bond that developed between men fighting in these conditions ran deep, and some officers felt a paternal affection for the men in their command.

That was your closest feeling at the time.

Uh your your affection for the men under you.

There’s no doubt about that.

And when a man in his company was killed or injured, it was an officer’s responsibility to write to his family to inform them.

But as every day brought more and more casualties, keeping up this duty was difficult for even the most diligent.

And sometimes he had about 60 letters to write and he didn’t even know he was right who he was writing about.

But we always tried to make a nice letter to the mother or father because we felt for them.

We understood what they were feeling.

Thousands more letters would be written before the Battle of the Som was over.

In the meantime, the British were about to unleash a secret weapon they hoped would bring them victory.

Archie Richards was one of those selected for the new tank corps.

At first, the crews were as mystified as anyone by the giant machines, but quickly began to realize their battle potential.

We saw them and we talked together about it and we said, “Well, what what is this? They got tracks and they must have got an engine and they must crawl crawl around.

” You know what I mean? And uh we size them up that way.

An armored crawler.

That’s what I called it.

And uh, of course, when we got in them and got moving around with them, well, we knew exactly what what they were for.

And the armaments when we got inside and we saw the armaments, we said, “Well, this is this is really it.

” As the Battle of the S entered its third month, the crews prepared themselves for their baptism of fire.

The age of the tank had arrived.

Throughout the July and August of 1916, the Allies made slow progress on the Sun.

Gains were made both in the north and south sectors, but at great cost.

By the beginning of September, General Hey called for a further all-out attack to break through German lines once and for all.

All available divisions would be required for the offensive to try to smash through German positions between the villages of Fleer and Corsolet.

It would be the greatest British attack since the opening day on the Sun.

The offensive would also see the unveiling of Britain’s new secret weapon, the tank.

These armored land ships had been designed to plow their way across no man’s land to break through barbed wire and destroy German machine gun positions.

However, they were untested in battle and Hey was well aware of the potential limitations of these new mechanical monsters [music] and unsure of the best way to employ them.

But as the first tanks rumbled into position, they gave a considerable boost to frontline troops about to go into action.

I was out in a trench out there with some others and I could hear a purr p going on and I thought, “What’s that noise? It’s getting louder and louder.

” Stood on the fire step and I could see something moving like what we call it’s got a steam road roller and I said, “Look.

” And they all started looking.

Some got up in the parapit and the Germans too were up in the parapit looking at what was happening.

And we could see these things moving and behind them there were probably four or five or six soldiers running behind with a bayonets fixed.

The battle of Flair Corsolet began on the morning of the 15th of September 1916.

This ridge less than 2 mi south of Flair formed part of the British front line.

[music] And it was here that 19-year-old George La from Hampshire waited nervously for the attack to begin.

I’m like this in the trench with a cigarette, my last cigarette [music] in me fingers.

And I was like that.

I don’t mind turning.

When we got over the top, I laid down after running forward.

Now we I could hear the whistle of the bullets going by.

And uh I saw a line of uh Germans come up on top of the trench.

I said, I thought to myself, Christ, they’re coming towards us.

But they wouldn’t.

They were going away.

Then I started walking.

In the confusion of battle, George found himself lost near these fields at Delville Wood, but he was quickly ordered to get back into action.

An officer came running out from somewhere.

I don’t know who he was, but he come out waving this revolver and he said, “Lads, this way.

I’ll shoot the first bastard and go the other way.

” And then I try to catch up with him when they going forward, but I somehow got lost and went out through the wood, started walking across the plane field.

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