What little i know of my Great Uncle come from an extract from a letter sent home to his family after the Batte of the Somme 1st July 1916 which he survived.This letter was printed in the local newspaper after the Battle. The paper had been printing letters home from locals at the time.

Sad i think he survived since his arrival with the Royal Irish [Ulster Division] early 1916 until May 1918 and quite a few battles in between..What he had experienced in his short life is hard to comprehend.

Have been to visit his grave in Belguim to keep his memory and sacrafice alive for future family memories.

The 12th Rifles found themselves in the thick of the fighting on the Western Front with their true baptism of fire coming7.30AM  on Saturday, July 1, 1916.

 

Above all, nothing less than a massacre could have been expected if the Division to the north of the Ulstermen failed to take out the multiple machine gun nests at Beaumont Hamel. When that attack failed, the Rifles and Fusiliers were cut down like corn before a scythe. Rifleman Ben Millar from Harperstown, Cullybackey, Ballymena Northern Ireland was one of those who had an extremely lucky escape on July 1.

 

In a letter to his father, Ben masks much of the horror of that day with what can only be termed a ‘boys own’ account of his battle experience. Such letters are common. Most soldiers preferred to keep their own families and loved ones ‘innocent’ of the stark realities of the war.

 

He wrote: "At 7.30 on the 1st July morning we were all standing in the trenches, waiting for the word of command. We got it, and in fine style we drove them back over the third and fourth line, but not without heavy losses - but the Hun’s losses were heaviest of all.

 

"We held their fire for an hour or two but we had to retire as we couldn’t get reinforcements up in time. It was then we got the cutting up. I got buried up twice; the second time I lost my senses, my nerves got ahead of me. Two chums pulled me out and brought me back to our own line."

 

With these matter of fact sentences, Ben Millar describes one of the greatest fears of any soldier of the Great War - being buried alive.

 

It seems that Rfn. Millar was amongst those who made it into the German trench system, bombing and bayoneting their way through the traverses of the fortifications. He states that the action itself only lasted three hours at the most for him.

 

By around 10.00am he was among the few still fighting for their lives. For most, the battle had ended within minutes - perhaps even seconds - of leaving their own lines.

 

And his next statement pragmatically sums up why the entire attack was such a gross failure.

"We had to retire because we couldn’t get reinforcements up in time." says Rfn. Millar.

Quite simply it was impossible to advance over open ground. To do so meant death.

 

And, as so often in battle, many casualties occurred when men had to leave the cover they had sought to ‘fall back’. It could be argued that those who made their way back to the British lines despite wounds and trauma on July 1 were amongst the bravest of the brave.

 

While in the trenches they were at least sheltered from the hail of machine gun fire and shrapnel which swept the open ground. But going ‘above ground’ almost guaranteed a wound of some kind.

 

Millar was one of those who made the desperate bid to escape the counter-attacking Germans. During that dash, German artillery observers called down hundreds of shells in an attempt to cause maximum casualties to what their own accounts describe as the ‘English troops’.

 

"I got buried up twice," says Millar. Can you imagine the sheer horror of being covered in stinking soil? And not just on one occasion. It is little wonder, as he admits, that Rfn. Harper lost his senses. Apart from the concussion of the blast, his reaction was probably a mental fail-safe to stop him from going entirely crazy.

As he states quite frankly: "My nerves got ahead of me

john MILLAR