This photograph shows the Memorial to the Missing, which stands at Thiepval in the Somme Department in Northern France.

On its columns are the names of 72,246 men from Britain and South Africa who died in this area, most of them during the 141 days of the Battle of the Somme.

These are men whose bodies were found but could not be identified, or whose bodies were never found, and who, 100 years later, lie where they fell. There are 110 men from our region among them.

The first week of the battle saw the deaths of 121 men from South Westmorland, 79 from the six battalions of the Border Regiment who were involved during that time.

The 8th Battalion of the Border Regiment, known locally as the Kendal Pals, had been in France since September 1915, but had not been involved in any major attacks.

On July 2, 1916 they received orders to attack, in company with two other battalions, the formidable German positions on the Thiepval Ridge, ground strewn with the bodies of dead Lancashire Fusiliers who had suffered terrible casualties here on July 1.

Even before they left the British front line at 6am on July 3, the organisation of the attack had descended into utter confusion, and as the Official Historian writes: “The attack had little chance of success”.

Some men did manage to advance two or three hundred yards and reach the German front line, but during the night of July 3 those men who were able to do so, retreated to the British lines.

he casualties from the three battalions amounted to some 1,100 men, 8 Borders’ share being 440, this in a small scale attack which would have achieved nothing useful even if it had succeeded, which it undoubtedly did not.

There are 10 Kendalians named on the Thiepval Memorial who died serving with 8 Border during this attack.

Walter Dixon, of Market Place; William Holme, of Captain French Lane; Walter Holmes, of Longpool, who worked at K Shoes; Thomas Keates, of Back Lane, Castle Street, a cabinet maker; Eric Lamonby, of Castle Street, a draper with Dawson’s of Finkle Street; Granville Musson, of Park Avenue, a mechanic with Atkinson and Griffin; Stephen Park, of Fountain Brow; Hodgson Sarginson, of Gawith Place, who worked in the cycle department at Atkinson and Griffin; Richard Wallace, of Queen Street, who worked at Co-op stores; and Albert E. Wilson, of Captain French Lane, who worked at Croppers.