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Post by EXO on Jul 2, 2016 11:23:21 GMT 8
I'm straying from normal with this, but I found it so moving, I wanted to share it with those of you who might otherwise not have had it come to your attention. 1 July was the 100th anniversary of the Somme. A one-off, large-scale theatre project involved imitation soldiers handing out cards bearing the names and details of the 19,240 Brits who were killed in the First World War battle. The live tribute saw actors in period uniform at railway stations up and down the country. Members of the public were moved to tears as masses of young men in First World War uniforms marked the 100th anniversary of the start of the battle.The silent ‘soldiers’ sang renditions of We’re Here Because We’re Here, the anthem sung by service men in the trenches during the conflict. The tune, which is sung to the tune of Auld Lang Syne, repeats its title several times, reflecting the monotony felt by the young soldiers at the time. The memorial scenes were organised by the National Theatre, who had created the tribute under the name Project Octagon to keep it a surprise. They chose sites for the moving performance in dozens of cities across the country including London, Bristol, Swansea, Newcastle, Salisbury and Aberdeen. More than 400 amateur actors, students, and university undergraduates took part in London alone after attending several rehearsals despite being kept in the dark about their final performance. I will now return you to normal transmission.
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Post by beirutvet on Jul 3, 2016 6:42:22 GMT 8
EXO
Good on you.
Nice to see someone has bothered to remember the "forgotten war"
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Post by okla on Jul 7, 2016 5:54:25 GMT 8
Hey BV....Somewhere, way back in my days in College, courtesy of the GI Bill, I vaguely remember hearing/reading that British General Kitchener, after touring the Somme Battlefield, soon after the debacle, was quoted as saying, "I can't believe we sent troops to fight in this horrible terrain,etc" or some such similar statement. If this is a fact, one wonders why those doomed souls were sent "over the top" in the first place. Methinks, it borders on being "Criminal". Of course, we all know that these frontal assaults, against the Maxims was all too common during World War Numero Uno. As I understand it, the remains of hundreds upon hundreds, totaling into, maybe, a few thousand, of British soldiers are still unrecovered from what was a sea of muck and mud back in 1916. If, as some pundit once remarked of the Custer Battlefield, that "Ghosts Walk at Midday", then the same is true, tenfold or more, at the 1916 Somme. Cheers.
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Post by beirutvet on Jul 8, 2016 22:22:37 GMT 8
19th century tactics V 20th century weapons = the Somme
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