Battle of the Somme, 1 July 1916

Photograph, World War One, Western Front, (1914-1918), 1916.

An assault battalion of the 103rd (Tyneside Irish) Brigade advance shortly after zero hour on 1 July during the Allied attack on La Boisselle. The 3,000-strong brigade attacked across Mash Valley but was caught by German machine-gun fire in no-man's land, sustaining over 1,900 casualties during the day.

From a collection of 98 official war photographs.