A SERVICE was held by the Llandudno Royal British Legion to commemorate the 110th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme.
On July 1, the Llandudno Royal British Legion were joined by civic leaders and members of the public for a service of commemoration at Llandudno war memorial to remember the soldiers of the town who died.
Branch padre Reverend Canon Philip Barratt led the service which started at 7.30am with 25 blasts of a trench whistle blown by Petty Officer Cadet Jones of the Conwy County Sea Cadet unit.
Each blast represented one of the Llandudno men who was killed at the Battle of the Somme in 1916.
Gordon Woodyatt, Chairman of Llandudno Royal British Legion, said: “The time was significant as it was at exactly 7.30am that whistles were blown 110 years earlier and the men left their trenches, walked across no-man’s land into barbed wire entanglements and straight into the teeth of the enemy machine gun, rifle and mortar fire that had not been destroyed as planned in an earlier artillery bombardment.”
The first day of the Battle of the Somme was the deadliest in British military history and by dusk 19,240 men had been killed. Ultimately the Battle of the Somme would continue for another five months before the offensive was stopped.
In that time, the Allies had only advanced seven miles but had suffered 420,000 casualties.
The bulk of British troops involved in the Battle of the Somme were inexperienced volunteers of the 'New Armies' including the thousands of Royal Welsh Fusiliers that had been billeted in Llandudno in 1914-15.
Resident Vicky Macdonald read the poem ‘A Soldiers’ Cemetery’ that was written by Serjeant John Williams Street in the weeks before the Battle of the Somme.
He died on the July 1 1916, the first day of the battle, while serving with the Sheffield Pals.
