Colonel Dub drags me to another battlefield, this time the Somme. We visited a couple of places where green troops (Newfoundlanders and Welshmen) got wiped out. The Colonel explained that the Germans almost always had the better  position (at Beaumont Hamel for example), and when they didn’t the British did the wrong thing with the advantage they had (the Welshmen charged out of the high ground).
La Somme
Albert, France
Rebuilt church in Albert
A river flows under it (the altar)
Tea room of the wife of the museum dude in Albert
Battlefield near La Boisselle
Mine crater at La Boisselle
 
The mud of the Somme
Crater
Beaumont Hamel, where the Newfies bled
Newfie caribou
Trenches at Beaumont Hamel
Col Dub, Kevin the guide (a native Newfie), and Kyle
Leftover barbed wire pickets
The firing line - first trench
 
Back the way the Newfies came from
One of the fallen
One of 400+ British cemeteries at the Somme - I was so moved, I couldn’t get my fat finger out of the lens.
Entrance to Beaumont Hamel Park
We had lunch at yet another tea room, this one with many lovely cats.
They were all huge!
The snow had been deep.
Thiepval memorial to the French and British missing - more than 74,000 or them
Thiepval - French on the left, British on the right
Welsh monument - more guys who died by German machine gun
Close up it’s pretty scary