Page 157 - Bugle Autumn 2014

Cadets Harris and Rawson pointing to the names of their relatives on the Thiepval memorial
Gloucestershire Army Cadet Force
Visit to the Somme Battlefields
On the Centenary of the outbreak of the Great War, 300 Cadets and Adults from Gloucestershire Army Cadet Force (The Rifles) have made a memorable visit to the Somme Battlefields in France during their Annual Camp.
The focus of the visit was the nine Battalions of The Gloucestershire Regiment which took part in the Battle of the Somme which started on 1st July 1916. The five month battle eventually forced the Germans back five miles but at huge human cost. The Gloucestershire Regiment known as the ‘Glorious Glosters’, lost 8100 Officers and Men during the Great War. Hundreds of soldiers from The Gloucestershire Regiment killed during the Somme Battle are buried there and the Cadets visited two of the 152 Commonwealth cemeteries on the former battlefield.
The unit was joined by VIPs including
Her Majesty’s Lord-Lieutenant for Gloucestershire Dame Janet Trotter DBE and the Honorary Colonel Major General Sir Evelyn Webb-Carter KCVO OPE DL.
The trip was particularly poignant as many Cadets had researched volunteers from their own towns in Gloucestershire who had joined their county Regiment. Some Cadets even learnt about their own relations who had fought in the Great War.
The Cadets conducted a parade and THE RIFLES
service at the world famous Thiepval Memorial to the 72,000 British soldiers killed on the Somme who were mostly victims
of artillery shells and are known as ‘The Missing’.
The Lord-Lieutenant for Gloucestershire Dame Janet Trotter DBE met many Cadets who briefed her on their research and
their own impressions of the visit. Dame Janet commented ‘During this year most people will be touched in some way by the commemoration of the First World War. However, the events of 100 years ago come
home in a new and different way standing on the battlefields, exploring the trenches and seeing the many rows of headstones. Our young Cadets today will never forget this experience nor the sacrifice of the many young men from Gloucestershire who fought and died.’
Cadet Liam Rawson from Podsmead Platoon in Gloucester told the Lord- Lieutenant about his four Great Great Uncles from Sherborne Street in Gloucester who
all joined the Gloucestershire Regiment in 1915 Three of them survived the Great War
Canadian Tour guide talks to Cadets about the Trenches and life at the Newfoundland war Memorial Park Colonel Peter Adams looks on
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