one hundred and two years ago today
Published: Sun, 07/01/18
Did you know that today is the one hundred and second anniversary of the start of the campaign on the river Somme, in Northern France? The British Army had been reconstituted with hundreds of thousands of volunteers and the plan was for a big push back against the German army. The attack was launched at 7.30am on this day 102 years ago. By the end of the day the British forces had suffered 60,000 casualties. The fighting on the Somme dragged on until November with 3 million soldiers fighting and a million casualties in all. It didn’t finish the war either, which of course dragged on for a further two years.
I always find that the most tragic aspect of the Great War (as it was known until 1939) was that it was supposed to have been such a terrible event that it would be the war to end all wars. Just in case you had not noticed, it wasn’t. I do read quite a lot of military history. A week or so ago I picked up a book entitled ‘Painting the Sand’ by Kim Hughes GC (the GC stands for George Cross which the Queen awarded to Hughs in 2010). Kim Hughs is a senior NCO and bomb disposal operator in the British Army. In 2009 then Staff Sergeant Hughs led a bomb disposal team during a 6 month tour of Afghanistan at the height of the Afghan war. During his tour he was responsible for disarming 119 improvised explosive devices (IEDs) For the Taliban their most effective weapon against the Western forces which were trying to occupy their country, were primitive and simple IEDs. Once located these devices were quite easy to disarm. On the other
hand, because the devices were simple and primitive, they were easy to make and deploy in huge numbers, so only a small proportion of them needed to work to inflict a lot of casualties. Over the 14 years that the British military was deployed in Afghanistan about 400 personnel were killed by hostile enemy action, many more wounded, over 220 of those who died were killed by land mines and IEDs. It would have been many more except for the courageous, skilled and dedicated work of bomb disposal specialists such as Hughs. His work was often surprisingly low tech. The most important tool was a paint brush with which to painstakingly remove the sand from around a buried IED, hence the title of the book. Painting the Sand is a story of professionalism, courage, comradeship and dedication. The book also concludes with an unequivocal realisation that all the blood and treasure expended in Afghanistan achieved nothing. At the same time
Hughs admits that, from a personal point of view, he enjoyed nearly every minute of the challenge he faced and the opportunity to do what he had been highly trained for.
This seems to be the paradox of war and armed conflict. What does war achieve that brings any real benefit to the human race? There is destruction on a massive scale, the finest young men of a generation may be slaughtered and even when a great achievement is claimed, such as defeating the Nazis, that came at the price of putting half of Europe under the control of the Soviet Union. On the other hand, being a soldier can bring out the finest qualities of courage, self-sacrifice and fortitude in otherwise very ordinary people. Through going to war people can find that they are capable of much more than they would ever have imagined. Or they might just die in terror, or be maimed in body and mind for the rest of their lives.
It cannot be a coincidence that Tyr is both the bravest and most honorable of the sons of Odin and is the one handed among the Aesir.
regards
Graham
PS Next martial training opportunity in Beverley on the 21st of July. Not training for war exactly but we will do some self-defence training in the morning http://iceandfire.org.uk/train.html