At 6:30am on 1st July 1916 across the Somme Battlefields, whistles blew and men rose from their trenches to advance across no-man’s-land. Within seconds hundreds had fallen, and by the end of that first day, over 19,000 lay dead, one man for every 4.4 seconds.

In this video, we’ll follow the fortunes of just one Division and one set of brothers as they attacked the most heavily defended part of the entire battlefield. This is the story of the assault on the Schwaben Redoubt.

Findmypast is a great tool we use for nearly all our videos. If you want to do your family research, you can check it out under the following links:
Start your family tree for free: http://battleguide.co.uk/findmypast

Sources:
• Find My Past Archives & Newsletter Database
• War Diaries of the Battalions (Naval and Military Press)
• Commonwealth War Graves Commission Archive (CWGC)
• US National Archives (NARA)
• Bundesarchiv
• Google Earth Pro & Web Versions
• Memory Maps, Trench Maps of the First World War
• Maptiler Pro (Desktop Version)

Credits:
• Research: Rory Stephens & Dan Hill
• Script & Narration: Dan Hill
• Editing: Simon James
• Thumbnail Design: Linus Klassen
• Music & Sound Effects: Shane Greer