South Devon in the Great War by Tony Rea

Author:Tony Rea [Rea, Tony]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Military, World War I, Europe, Great Britain, General, Social History
ISBN: 9781473870598
Google: 2BAmDAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2016-03-30T03:01:34+00:00

A memorial stone in the Devonshire Cemetery, France

At the end of the first day of the Battle of the Somme the bodies of many men of the 8th and 9th Devons were retrieved from where they had fallen. They were carried back to the front line trench position and buried in a section of it. On 4 July a ceremony was held at the burial site of the 161 soldiers from the Devonshire Regiment. A wooden cross was put up at the time by the survivors. Carved on the cross was the inscription: ‘The Devonshires held this trench, the Devonshires hold it still’.

The graves were left in this position when the cemeteries were rebuilt after the war and there are now 163 graves in Devonshire Cemetery. The words of the original inscription are on a stone memorial at the cemetery entrance. The dead include Captain Duncan Lenox Martin and Lieutenant William Noel Hodgson.

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