Title:THE WORLD'S GREATEST STORY - EPISODE 3 [Main Title]
Film Number:IWM 420-05+6
Other titles:
Summary: A thematic treatment (re-edited from IWM 191 BATTLE OF THE SOMME) of the opening of the British offensive on the Somme, July 1916.
Description: (Reel 5) The episode, as with all in the series, opens with the figure of 'Justice' portrayed by an actress. British troops march in column through villages near to the front. A bombardment by 60-pounders and 6-inch Mk VII guns. Troops attack, "endless waves of invincible troops swept over no man's land". Wounded are brought in by stretcher-bearers. 1st Battalion, the Lancashire Fusiliers, wait for the attack. The bombardment in no man's land. Limbers move up past the bodies of Gordon Highlanders. (Reel 6) More stretcher-bearers, "the battlefield became almost a sanctuary, so well did those brave men of the Red Cross perform their glorious task". 4.7-inch field guns firing. The dressing station at Minden Post, where "the very slightly wounded prepare to return to the fight". More bombardment. A chaplain talks to a wounded man, "through all the scarlet horrors of war was interwoven the thread of sweet compassion by the Padre forever tending to the needy". German prisoners are marched away from the battlefield.
