Thiepval
Thiepval Memorial, 2008...
Overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the Thiepval Memorial, which holds the names of 72,195 British and Commonwealth troops listed as missing after the Battle of the Somme.
Along with the Menin Gate in Ypres, Thiepval is probably the most impressive - certainly in terms of size - of the memorials you're likely to encounter on a battlefield tour.
Now consider the fact that the Menin Gate holds the names of another 54,896 Commonwealth soldiers who lost their lives but were never found. And Tyne Cot's memorial to the missing holds 33,783 soldiers of the UK forces, plus a further 1,176 New Zealanders.
And then wonder how many more Tyne Cot-sized cemeteries we'd be looking at in northern France and Belgium dedicated to 'our' lads, let alone the casualties suffered by the French, Belgians and Germans, if we'd ever managed to find them all....
