Six stands in one day: walking the Somme battlefield

Stand 6: Newfoundland Memorial, Guedecourt today

Newfoundland Memorial, Guedecourt - recent map

• Bapaume is visible to the north and was to have been taken in the first week.
• The Thiepval memorial, which stands on the 1 July front line, is visible to the west. Getting from Thiepval to this spot, now a fifteen minute drive had cost the British army over 400,000 men killed, wounded and missing.
• Just south of the village is the AIF Burial Ground (AIF stands for Australian Imperial Force) which contains 3,450 graves, nearly two-thirds of them of unknown soldiers. Buried there is Second Lieutenant Ernest Shephard of the Dorsetshire Regiment. He had served in his regiment's 1st Battalion as a regular soldier, and was commissioned from the ranks into the 5th Battalion, but lived less than two months to enjoy his new rank. His diaries were published as A Sergeant Major's War.