The Somme – Devonshire Trench

Battlefield Guide – Olivia Smith

Tour Manager – Lucy Betteridge-Dyson

Scheduled For –  Sunday 21st March

‘The Devonshires Held This Trench, the Devonshires Hold It Still’ – Those iconic words can be found adorning a stone tablet outside a small British cemetery on the southern sector of the Somme battlefields. It was close to this location on 1st July 1916 that men of the 9th Devonshire Regiment launched an assault against strongly held German positions outside the village of Mametz. What followed was an incredible example of courage, discipline and sacrifice on that famous day.

This virtual tour will take you into Mansell Copse with the 9th Devons and explore why Captain Duncan Martin believed their planned attack was a recipe for disaster. We will follow the action of that morning using the latest technology and testimony of the men themselves. We finish with a journey into the cemetery itself to understand it’s formation by the Imperial War Graves Commission and learn a little more about the men who lie there to this day.