Dan Hill

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2,064 appearances 11 recordings 1 series first heard Jun 2026 last heard 7 Sep

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

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 11 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 5.

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

And so it's decided to tunnel underneath it, blow a huge mine up just before the attack, and then open a door which allows troops to flood through and capture and hold the village of Bowman Amel.

Had that been achieved, things would have been very different in the northern sector on the 1st of July.

But for some great mystery of history, which still hasn't really been fully settled today, it's decided that that mine is not going to go up like almost all of the other mines on the Somme front that day, around 7.28pm.

allowing two minutes for the smoke and debris to settle and those big blocks that could cause injury to attacking troops to come down and hit the ground, but rather 10 minutes early at 7.20.

And when that mind goes off, I quite often use the analogy on the battlefield, it's a bit like ringing the doorbell before you try and burgle a house.

everybody realizes there must be something going on.

And so this race to the parapet, even with a cut down no man's land, like the two companies that the Lancashire Fusiliers are facing, is no race at all.

Because it's 7.30 in the morning when the whistles blow and the guns move forward.

The Germans are already on their machine guns, and it's just an absolute tragedy.

Something like 86% of the attacking Lancashire Fusiliers are going to be killed or wounded that day.

Off to their right-hand side, even in the second wave, which is going to go in 45 minutes later, you get the 1st Battalion Newfoundland Regiment lose something like 92% of their entire battalion.

So...

Experienced troops, battlefield hardened, know their stuff, have a few advantages.

Even those kind of guys are not going to see any real success in that northern part of the battlefield that morning.

Yeah, it is.

You know, as we touched on a moment ago, but just to kind of sort of follow that through a little more.

One of the real tragedies here is the idea of miscommunication and misunderstanding the process and the progress that might be made that morning.

One of the things that 29th Division are asked to do when they go over the top is the leading waves will carry a bit of metal.

metal tin on the back of their packs, which can be used by observers behind the lines to identify exactly how far the leading troops have got.

Also, they're going to have, of course, communications, runners.

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