Dan Hill

speaker

2,263 appearances 13 recordings 1 series first heard Jun 2026 last heard 2d ago

Dan Hill’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

Trend

recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 13 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 5.

Appearances

newest first · ▶ plays the moment

WW1: Not So Quiet On The Western Front! · Episode 135: The Somme’s Northern Disaster · 6 Jul 2026 podcast

Despite this being a really tough area to fight, the Ulsters, who are a new army formation from Northern Ireland, for those who are not UK-based,

traditionally tough fighting, hard fighting lads that are really going to be very impressive in the attack, albeit not professional soldiers.

They've been given the job of a forward, direct frontal assault onto the Schwabenradau, get into those German trenches, push through, and then hold on for dear life.

If possible, reserves will then be brought up to outflank the Tierbau Ridge, and maybe the story of the entire Battle of the Somme could be very, very different.

But what's incredible about this is they do achieve it, at least in part.

That first morning, the Ulsters have been given a different job.

There's a little more innovation in this part of the division.

They've been told they can run.

One of the reasons they can run is because in the days and hours leading up to the attack, they've been sapping out, driving trenches forward into No Man's Land to really shorten down the distance of No Man's Land.

So troops are not getting into the front line absolutely exhausted at this point.

In fact, a mad dash but for a short distance is seen as being very effective.

And also in addition to that, as well as the artillery moving forwards at 7.30 as it's planned to do, that little gap in time actually proves very difficult and in fact very deadly on the 1st of July.

that gap between the guns moving forward and the first troops arriving.

That often serves as just enough for German infantry to get out of their trenches, get on their machine guns and start firing and catching the advancing British in no man's land.

The Ulsters in this sector have decided to employ their trench mortars to fill in that gap.

So as soon as the main bombardment pitches forward, trench mortars from within the division's own strength are going to open up all along the front, hopefully keeping German heads down until the very moment the leading Ulstermann make it into their trenches.

And incredibly, that's exactly what happens.

They get into those trenches, they force the Germans out at the point of the bayonet, they drive through much of the Schwabenrid out and even get out the other side of it in some instances.

And at that point, Spence, there's real possibility at least that this important, absolutely key part of the entire Somme front may well just be held.

But tragically, it's not going to end that way.

Showing 2181–2200 of 2,263 · page 110 of 114