title: Game design

text: The games studied in game theory are well-defined mathematical objects. To be fully defined, a game must specify the following elements: the "players" of the game, the "information" and "actions" available to each player at each decision point, and the "payoffs" for each outcome. (Rasmusen refers to these four "essential elements" by the acronym "PAPI".) A game theorist typically uses these elements, along with a solution concept of their choosing, to deduce a set of equilibrium strategies for each player such that, when these strategies are employed, no player can profit by unilaterally deviating from their strategy. These equilibrium strategies determine an equilibrium to the game—a stable state in which either one outcome occurs or a set of outcomes occur with known probability. .


title: Game design

text: Games can be characterized by "what the player does" and what the player experiences. This is often referred to as gameplay. Major key elements identified in this context are tools and rules that define the overall context of game.


title: Game design

text: Games are often classified by the components required to play them (e.g. miniatures, a ball, cards, a board and pieces, or a computer). In places where the use of leather is well established, the ball has been a popular game piece throughout recorded history, resulting in a worldwide popularity of ball games such as rugby, basketball, football, cricket, tennis, and volleyball. Other tools are more idiosyncratic to a certain region. Many countries in Europe, for instance, have unique standard decks of playing cards. Other games such as chess may be traced primarily through the development and evolution of its game pieces.


title: Game design

text: Many game tools are tokens, meant to represent other things. A token may be a pawn on a board, play money, or an intangible item such as a point scored.


title: Game design

text: Games such as hide-and-seek or tag do not utilise any obvious tool; rather, their interactivity is defined by the environment. Games with the same or similar rules may have different gameplay if the environment is altered. For example, hide-and-seek in a school building differs from the same game in a park; an auto race can be radically different depending on the track or street course, even with the same cars.


title: Game design

text: Whereas games are often characterized by their tools, they are often defined by their rules. While rules are subject to variations and changes, enough change in the rules usually results in a "new" game. There are exceptions to this in that some games deliberately involve the changing of their own rules, but even then there are often immutable meta-rules.


title: Game design

text: Rules generally determine turn order, the rights and responsibilities of the players, each player's goals, and how game components interact with each other to produce changes in a game's state. Player rights may include when they may spend resources or move tokens.


title: Game design

text: Common win conditions are being first to amass a certain quota of points or tokens (as in Settlers of Catan), having the greatest number of tokens at the end of the game (as in Monopoly), some relationship of one's game tokens to those of one's opponent (as in chess's checkmate), or reaching a certain point in a storyline (as in most roleplay-games).


title: Game design

text: Most games require multiple players. Single-player games are unique in respect to the type of challenges a player faces. Unlike a game with multiple players competing with or against each other to reach the game's goal, a single-player game is against an element of the environment, against one's own skills, against time, or against chance. This is also true of cooperative games, in which multiple players share a common goal and win or lose together.


title: Game design

text: Many games described as "single-player" or "cooperative" could alternatively be described as puzzles or recreations, in that they do not involve strategic behavior (as defined by game theory), in which the expected reaction of an opponent to a possible move becomes a factor in choosing which move to make.


title: Game design

text: Games against opponents simulated with artificial intelligence differ from other single-player games in that the algorithms used usually do incorporate strategic behavior.


title: Game design

text: Stories told in games may focus on narrative elements that can be communicated through the use of mechanics and player choice. Narrative plots in games generally have a clearly defined and simplistic structure. Mechanical choices on the part of the designer(s) often drastically affect narrative elements in the game. However, due to a lack of unified and standardized teaching and understanding of narrative elements in games, individual interpretations, methods, and terminology vary wildly. Because of this, most narrative elements in games are created unconsciously and intuitively. However, as a general rule, game narratives increase in complexity and scale as player choice or game mechanics increase in complexity and scale. One example of this is removing a players ability to directly affect the plot for a limited time. This lack of player choice necessitates an increase in mechanical complexity and could be used as a metaphor to symbolize depression that is felt by a character in the narrative.


title: Game design

text: A game's tools and rules will result in its requiring skill, strategy, luck, or a combination thereof, and are classified accordingly.


title: Game design

text: Games of skill include games of physical skill, such as wrestling, tug of war, hopscotch, target shooting, and horseshoes, and games of mental skill such as checkers and chess. Games of strategy include checkers, chess, go, arimaa, and tic-tac-toe, and often require special equipment to play them. Games of chance include gambling games (blackjack, mah-jongg, roulette, etc.), as well as snakes and ladders and rock, paper, scissors; most require equipment such as cards or dice.


title: Game design

text: Most games contain two or all three of these elements. For example, American football and baseball involve both physical skill and strategy while tiddlywinks, poker, and Monopoly combine strategy and chance. Many card and board games combine all three; most trick-taking games involve mental skill, strategy, and an element of chance, as do many strategic board games such as Risk, Settlers of Catan, and Carcassonne.


title: Game design

text: By learning through play children can develop social and cognitive skills, mature emotionally, and gain the self-confidence required to engage in new experiences and environments.


title: Game design

text: Key ways that young children learn include playing, being with other people, being active, exploring and new experiences, talking to themselves, communicating with others, meeting physical and mental challenges, being shown how to do new things, practicing and repeating skills, and having fun.


title: Game design

text: Play develops children's content knowledge and provides children the opportunity to develop social skills, competencies, and disposition to learn. Play-based learning is based on a Vygotskian model of scaffolding where the teacher pays attention to specific elements of the play activity and provides encouragement and feedback on children's learning. When children engage in real-life and imaginary activities, play can be challenging in children's thinking. To extend the learning process, sensitive intervention can be provided with adult support when necessary during play-based learning.


title: Game design

text: Game design is part of a game's development from concept to its final form. Typically, the development process is an iterative process, with repeated phases of testing and revision. During revision, additional design or re-design may be needed.


title: Game design

text: A game designer (or inventor) is the person who invents a game's concept, its central mechanisms, and its rules.


title: Game design

text: Often, the game designer also invents the game's title and, if the game isn't abstract, its theme. Sometimes these activities are done by the game publisher, not the designer, or maybe dictated by a licensed property (such as when designing a game based on a film).


title: Game design

text: A game developer is the person who fleshes out the details of a game's design, oversees its testing, and revises the game in response to player feedback.


title: Game design

text: Often the game designer is also its developer, although some publishers do extensive development of games to suit their particular target audience after licensing a game from a designer. For larger games, such as collectible card games and most video games, a team is used and the designer and developer roles are usually split among multiple people.


title: Game design

text: A game artist is an artist who creates art for one or more types of games. Game artists are often vital to and credited in role-playing games, collectible card games and video games.


title: Game design

text: Many graphic elements of games are created by the designer when producing a prototype of the game, revised by the developer based on testing, and then further refined by the artist and combined with artwork as a game is prepared for publication or release.


title: Game design

text: Video game artists are responsible for all of the aspects of game development that call for visual art.


title: Game design

text: A game concept is an idea for a game, briefly describing its core play mechanisms, who the players represent, and how they win or lose.


title: Game design

text: A game concept may be "pitched" to a game publisher in a similar manner as film ideas are pitched to potential film producers. Alternatively, game publishers holding a game license to intellectual property in other media may solicit game concepts from several designers before picking one to design a game, typically paying the designer in advance against future royalties.


title: Game design

text: During design, a game concept is fleshed out. Mechanisms are specified in terms of components (boards, cards, on-screen entities, etc.) and rules. The play sequence and possible player actions are defined, as well as how the game starts, ends, and what is its winning condition. In video games, storyboards and screen mockups may be created.


title: Game design

text: A game prototype is a draft version of a game used for testing. Typically, creating a prototype marks the shift from game design to game development and testing. Although prototyping in regards to human-computer interaction and interaction design are both studied, the use of prototyping in game design has remained relatively unexplored. It's known that game design has clear benefits from prototyping, such as exploring new game design possibilities and technologies, the field of game design has different characteristics than other types of software industries that consider prototyping in game design in a different category and need a new perspective


title: Game design

text: Game testing is a major part of game development. During testing, players play the game and provide feedback on its gameplay, the usability of its components or screen elements, the clarity of its goals and rules, ease of learning, and enjoyment to the game developer. The developer then revises the design, its components, presentation, and rules before testing it again. Later testing may take place with focus groups to test consumer reactions before publication.


title: Game design

text: Video game testing is a software testing process for quality control of video games. The primary function of game testing is the discovery and documentation of software defects (aka bugs). Interactive entertainment software testing is a highly technical field requiring computing expertise, analytic competence, critical evaluation skills, and endurance.


title: Game design

text: Board game design is the development of rules and presentational aspects of a board game. When a player takes part in a game, it is the player's self-subjection to the rules that create a sense of purpose for the duration of the game. Maintaining the players' interest throughout the gameplay experience is the goal of board game design. To achieve this, board game designers emphasize different aspects such as social interaction, strategy, and competition, and target players of differing needs by providing for short versus long-play, and luck versus skill. Beyond this, board game design reflects the culture in which the board game is produced.


title: Game design

text: The most ancient board games known today are over 5000 years old. They are frequently abstract in character and their design is primarily focused on a core set of simple rules. Of those that are still played today, games like go (c.400BC), mancala (c.700AD), and chess (c.600AD) have gone through many presentational and/or rule variations. In the case of chess, for example, new variants are developed constantly, to focus on certain aspects of the game, or just for variation's sake.


title: Game design

text: Traditional board games date from the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Whereas ancient board game design was primarily focused on rules alone, traditional board games were often influenced by Victorian mores. Academic (e.g. history and geography) and moral didacticism were important design features for traditional games, and Puritan associations between dice and the Devil meant that early American game designers eschewed their use in board games entirely. Even traditional games that did use dice, like "Monopoly" (based on the 1906 "The Landlord's Game"), were rooted in educational efforts to explain political concepts to the masses. By the 1930s and 1940s, board game design began to emphasize amusement over education, and characters from comic strips, radio programmes, and (in the 1950s) television shows began to be featured in board game adaptations.


title: Game design

text: Recent developments in modern board game design can be traced to the 1980s in Germany, and have led to the increased popularity of "German-style board games" (also known as "Eurogames" or "designer games"). The design emphasis of these board games is to give players meaningful choices. This is manifested by eliminating elements like randomness and luck to be replaced by skill, strategy, and resource competition, by removing the potential for players to fall irreversibly behind in the early stages of a game, and by reducing the number of rules and possible player options to produce what Alan R. Moon has described as "elegant game design". The concept of elegant game design has been identified by "The Boston Globe"'s Leon Neyfakh as related to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's the concept of "flow" from his 1990 book, "Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience".


title: Game design

text: Modern technological advances have had a democratizing effect on board game production, with services like Kickstarter providing designers with essential startup capital and tools like 3D printers facilitating the production of game pieces and board game prototypes. A modern adaptation of figure games are miniature wargames like "Warhammer 40,000".


title: Game design

text: Card games include games with cards that are custom-tailored to the game, as in many modern games, as well as those whose design is constricted by the type of the deck of cards, like Tarot or the four-suited Latin decks. Card games can be played for fun, such as Go Fish, or as gambling games, such as Poker.


title: Game design

text: In Asian cultures, special sets of tiles can serve the same function as cards, as in mahjong, a game similar to (and thought to be the distant ancestor of) the Western card game rummy. Western dominoes games are believed to have developed from Asian tile games in the 18th century.


title: Game design

text: The line between card and board games is not clear-cut, as many card games, such as solitaire, involve playing cards to form a "tableau", a spatial layout or board. Many board games, in turn, uses specialized cards to provide random events, such as the Chance cards of Monopoly (game), or as the central mechanism driving play, as in many card-driven wargames.


title: Game design

text: As cards are typically shuffled and revealed gradually during play, most card games involve randomness, either initially or during play, and hidden information, such as the cards in a player's hand. This is in contrast to many board games, in which most of the game's current state is visible to all participants, even though players may also have a small amount of private information, such as the letter tiles on each player's rack during Scrabble.


title: Game design

text: How players play their cards, revealing information and interacting with previous plays as they do so, is central to card game design. In partnership card games, such as Bridge, rules limiting communication between players on the same team become an important part of the game design. This idea of limited communication has been extended to cooperative card games, such as Hanabi.


title: Game design

text: Dice games are among the oldest known games and have often been associated with gambling. Non-gambling dice games, such as Yatzy, Poker dice, or Yahtzee became popular in the mid-20th century.


title: Game design

text: The line between dice and board games is not clear-cut, as dice are often used as randomization devices in board games, such as Monopoly or Risk, while serving as the central drivers of play in games such as Backgammon or Pachisi.


title: Game design

text: Dice games differ from card games in that each throw of the dice is an independent event, whereas the odds of a given card being drawn are affected by all the previous cards drawn or revealed from a deck. Dice game design often centers around forming scoring combinations and managing re-rolls, either by limiting their number, as in Yahtzee or by introducing a press-your-luck element, as in Can't Stop.


title: Game design

text: Casino game design can entail the creation of an entirely new casino game, the creation of a variation on an existing casino game, or the creation of a new side bet on an existing casino game.


title: Game design

text: Casino game mathematician, Michael Shackleford has noted that it is much more common for casino game designers today to make successful variations than entirely new casino games. Gambling columnist John Grochowski points to the emergence of community-style slot machines in the mid-1990s, for example, as a successful variation on an existing casino game type.


title: Game design

text: Unlike the majority of other games which are designed primarily in the interest of the player, one of the central aims of casino game design is to optimize the house advantage and maximize revenue from gamblers. Successful casino game design works to provide entertainment for the player and revenue for the gambling house.


title: Game design

text: To maximise player entertainment, casino games are designed with simple easy-to-learn rules that emphasize winning (i.e. whose rules enumerate many victory conditions and few loss conditions), and that provide players with a variety of different gameplay postures (e.g. card hands). Player entertainment value is also enhanced by providing gamblers with familiar gaming elements (e.g. dice and cards) in new casino games.


title: Game design

text: To maximise success for the gambling house, casino games are designed to be easy for croupiers to operate and for pit managers to oversee.


title: Game design

text: The two most fundamental rules of casino game design are that the games must be non-fraudable (including being as nearly as possible immune from advantage gambling) and that they must mathematically favor the house winning. Shackleford suggests that the optimum casino game design should give the house an edge of smaller than 5%.


title: Game design

text: The design of role-playing games requires the establishment of setting, characters, and basic gameplay rules or mechanics. After a role-playing game is produced, additional design elements are often devised by the players themselves. In many instances, for example, character creation is left to the players. Likewise, the progression of a role-playing game is determined in large part by the gamemaster whose individual campaign design may be directed by one of several role-playing game theories.


title: Game design

text: There is no central core for tabletop role-playing game theory because different people want such different things out of the games. Probably the most famous category of RPG theory, GNS Theory assumes that people want one of three things out of the game – a better, more interestingly challenging game, to create a more interesting story, or a better simulation – in other words better rules to support worldbuilding. GNS Theory has been abandoned by its creator, partly because it neglects emotional investment, and partly because it just didn't work properly. There are techniques that people use (such as dice pools) to better create the game they want – but with no consistent goal or agreement for what makes for a good game there's no overarching theory generally agreed on.


title: Game design

text: Video game design is a process that takes place in the pre-production phase of video game development. In the video game industry, game design describes the creation of the content and rules of a video game. The goal of this process for the game designer is to provide players with the opportunity to make meaningful decisions in relation to playing the game. Elements of video game design such as the establishment of fundamental gameplay rules provide a framework within which players will operate, while the addition of narrative structures provide players with a reason to care about playing the game. To establish the rules and narrative, an internally consistent game world is created, requiring visual, audio, and programming development for world, character, and level design. The amount of work that is required to accomplish this often demands the use of a design team which may be divided into smaller game design disciplines. In order to maintain internal consistency between the teams, a specialized software design document known as a "game design document" (and sometimes an even broader scope "game bible" document) provides overall contextual guidance on ambient mood, appropriate tone, and other less tangible aspects of the game world.


title: Game design

text: The first military war games, or Kriegsspiel, were designed in Prussia in the 19th century to train staff officers. They are also played as a hobby for entertainment.


title: Game design

text: Modern war games are designed to test doctrines, strategies and tactics in full scale exercises with opposing forces at venues like the NTC, JRTC and the JMRC, involving NATO countries.


title: The Boulet Brothers' Dragula (season 4)

text: The fourth season of "The Boulet Brothers' Dragula" aired from October 19, 2021, and concluded on December 21, 2021, broadcast on Shudder across all territories, featuring 11 contestants competing for the title of "World's Next Drag Supermonster" and a cash prize of $100,000. Contestants in the season included "RuPaul's Drag Race" alumni Jade Jolie, season three contestant Saint, who earned a spot in the competition after winning "" special, and season two contestant Dahli, also a participant in the "Resurrection" special, the latter entered the competition from the second episode.


title: Kiss Me Deadly

text: Kiss Me Deadly is a 1955 American film noir produced and directed by Robert Aldrich, starring Ralph Meeker, Albert Dekker, Paul Stewart, Juano Hernandez, and Wesley Addy. It also features Maxine Cooper and Cloris Leachman appearing in their feature film debuts. The film follows a private investigator in Los Angeles who becomes embroiled in a complex mystery after picking up a female hitchhiker. The screenplay was written by Aldrich and A. I. Bezzerides, based on the 1952 crime novel "Kiss Me, Deadly" by Mickey Spillane.


title: Kiss Me Deadly

text: "Kiss Me Deadly" grossed $726,000 in the United States and $226,000 overseas. The film received the condemnation of the Kefauver Commission, which accused it of being "designed to ruin young viewers", a verdict that director Aldrich protested. Despite initial critical disapproval, it is considered one of the most important and influential film noirs of all time.


title: Kiss Me Deadly

text: The film has been noted as a stylistic precursor to the French New Wave, and has been cited as a major influence on a number of filmmakers, including François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Alex Cox, and Quentin Tarantino. In 1999, "Kiss Me Deadly" was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."


title: Kiss Me Deadly

text: Mike Hammer is a tough private investigator who, with the assistance of his associate and lover Velda, typically works on "penny-ante divorce cases." One evening, Hammer is forced to suddenly stop his sports car by Christina, an escapee from a nearby psychiatric hospital, who is running barefoot along the road, wearing nothing but a trench coat. Hammer gives her a ride. Christina asks him, whatever happens, to "remember me," alluding to a poem by Christina Rossetti. Thugs waylay them, and Hammer hears Christina screaming as she is tortured to death. The thugs then push Hammer's car off a cliff with Christina's body and an unconscious Hammer inside.


title: Kiss Me Deadly

text: Hammer comes to in a hospital with Velda hovering over him. He decides to investigate Christina's death, believing that it "must be connected with something big." He retrieves a book of poetry from the dead woman's apartment and reads aloud several lines from Rosetti's poem, "Remember", as he tries to figure out what that something might be.


title: Kiss Me Deadly

text: Hammer goes to the apartment of Lily Carver, who says she was Christina's roommate. Lily tells Hammer she is in hiding and asks him to protect her. She is after a mysterious box that, she believes, has contents worth a fortune. Hammer later arrives at the lavish mansion of gangster Carl Evello, who also seeks the box. Hammer fends off Charlie Max and Sugar Smallhouse, two of Evello's henchmen, and then confronts Evello, who is initially impressed by Hammer's brazenness and offers to work out a deal, but swiftly retracts the offer.


title: Kiss Me Deadly

text: Hammer's friend, Nick the auto mechanic, who helped defuse bombs planted in Hammer's car, is then murdered. Carl's thugs kidnap Hammer and take him to an isolated beach house, where another of their associates, Dr. G. E. Soberin (revealed to be Christina and Nick's murderer), injects him with sodium pentothal before interrogating him. Hammer slips free of his bonds, kills Carl and Sugar, and escapes. He locates the suspiciously-hot box, which burns his arm, in a locker at the Hollywood Athletic Club, but when he goes to his friend Lieutenant Murphy for help, Murphy warns him off, hinting it has to do with a top-secret government experiment akin to the Manhattan Project. Hammer goes back to the beach house. Before he arrives, Lily, now revealed to be an imposter named Gabrielle, is there with Soberin. They have the box, and have Velda locked in a bedroom. Gabrielle shoots Soberin to get the box for herself. With his dying words, Soberin urges the insatiably curious Gabrielle not to open it.


title: Kiss Me Deadly

text: When Hammer comes into the room, Gabrielle says "Kiss me, Mike" and shoots him. She then opens the box, which emits a blinding light and piercing sound. Gabrielle screams and bursts into flames. Hammer, wounded, struggles to his feet, and looks for Velda. Together, the pair flee the burning house, helping each other along the beach to the ocean as the house explodes behind them and becomes consumed in flames.


title: Kiss Me Deadly

text: In October 1954 Robert Aldrich announced he would produce and direct two Mickey Spillane stories the following year, for Parklane Productions, an independent company owned by Victor Saville. The stories would be "Kiss Me, Deadly" and "My Gun Is Quick". Saville turned over control to Aldrich because he was busy on "The Silver Chalice".


title: Kiss Me Deadly

text: The screenplay was loosely adapted by A. I. Bezzerides with contributions from Aldrich, though it "made no effort to follow the book’s convoluted plot, [though] both are structured around [a] search for a mysterious box."


title: Kiss Me Deadly

text: "Kiss Me Deadly" departs from other Mike Hammer films in that Hammer never carries a gun. This is explained when Lt. Murphy tells Hammer his PI license and gun permit have been revoked. Although he is held at gunpoint, pistol whipped, and even shot, he complies with the gun ban, relying only on his fists to hammer people into submission or worse. The screenplay also departs from Spillane's novel, replacing the mafia conspiracy at the center of the novel with an apparent case of espionage and a mysterious suitcase serving as the film's MacGuffin. The film further departs from the book by portraying Hammer not so much as a sleuth of the hardboiled school than as a sleazy, narcissistic bully, perhaps the darkest private detective in film noir.


title: Kiss Me Deadly

text: Much to the derision of the local police, Hammer makes his living mostly by blackmailing adulterers, he or his secretary sometimes seducing and entrapping the targets themselves, a practice perhaps made even worse because Hammer seems to exploit the genuine affection that Velda feels for him to get her participation. He readily resorts to violence, whether he's defending himself against the thugs Evello sends to kill him, breaking a potential informant's treasured record to get him to talk,or roughing up a coroner who has the temerity to demand payment in return for a key that Christina had apparently swallowed before her death. Bezzerides wrote of the script: "I wrote it fast because I had contempt for it... I tell you Spillane didn't like what I did with his book. I ran into him at a restaurant and, boy, he didn't like me".


title: Kiss Me Deadly

text: "Kiss Me Deadly" is a time capsule of Los Angeles, much of it filmed in the downtown neighborhood of Bunker Hill. Many of the locations disappeared in the urban development of the late 1960s, although a few remain.


title: Kiss Me Deadly

text: Critics have generally viewed the film as a metaphor for the paranoia and fear of nuclear war that prevailed during the Cold War era. "The great whatsit," as Velda refers to the object of Hammer's quest, turns out to be a mysterious valise, hot to the touch because of the dangerous, glowing substance it contains, a metaphor for the atomic bomb. The film has been described as "the definitive, apocalyptic, nihilistic, science-fiction film noir of all time – at the close of the classic noir period." A leftist at the time of the Hollywood blacklist, Bezzerides denied any conscious intention for this metaphor in his script, saying that "I was having fun with it. I wanted to make every scene, every character, interesting."


title: Kiss Me Deadly

text: Film critic Nick Schager wrote, "Never was Mike Hammer's name more fitting than in "Kiss Me Deadly", Robert Aldrich's blisteringly nihilistic noir in which star Ralph Meeker embodies Mickey Spillane's legendary P.I. with brute force savagery... The gumshoe's subsequent investigation into the woman's death doubles as a lacerating indictment of modern society's dissolution into physical/moral/spiritual degeneracy – a reversion that ultimately leads to nuclear apocalypse and man's return to the primordial sea – with the director's knuckle-sandwich cynicism pummeling the genre's romantic fatalism into a bloody pulp. 'Remember me?' Aldrich's sadistic, fatalistic masterpiece is impossible to forget". Rotten Tomatoes reports that 97% of its critics gave the film a positive review, with an average rating of 8.1/10, based on 37 reviews. The consensus states, "An intriguing, wonderfully subversive blend of art and commerce, "Kiss Me Deadly" is an influential noir classic."


title: Kiss Me Deadly

text: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer released the film on VHS as part of their "Vintage Classics" collection in 1999, and on DVD in 2001, with the alternate ending as a Special Feature. A digitally restored version of the film was released on DVD and Blu-ray by The Criterion Collection in June 2011, and also includes the alternate ending.


title: Kiss Me Deadly

text: The original ending of the American release of the film shows Hammer and Velda escaping from the burning house, staggering into the ocean as the words "The End" come over them on the screen. Sometime after its first release, the ending was altered on the film's negative, removing 82 seconds of footage showing the escape, and instead superimposing "The End" over the burning house. This implied that Hammer and Velda perished in the blaze, which some have interpreted as an apocalyptic ending. In 1997, the original ending was restored after the missing footage was discovered in the vaults of the Directors Guild by Glenn Erickson.


title: Kiss Me Deadly

text: Contemporary film scholars have named "Kiss Me Deadly" as one of the most influential exemplars of American film noir, with praise for its bleak and nihilistic tone, its version of pulp fiction archetypes, and its twist ending. The film's apocalyptic elements have earned it an entry in "The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction". "Kiss Me Deadly" has been cited as a stylistic predecessor of the French New Wave. François Truffaut has acknowledged its influence on his "elliptic" filmmaking style, as has Jean-Luc Godard. In the 1960s, both filmmakers touted the film as the single American film "most responsible for the French New Wave." Homage is paid to the glowing suitcase MacGuffin in the 1984 cult film "Repo Man", the film "Ronin", and in Tarantino's film "Pulp Fiction". The "shiny blue suitcase" is mentioned with other famous MacGuffins in "Guardians of the Galaxy". When the Ark of the Covenant in the film "Raiders of the Lost Ark" is opened, the shot of Rene Belloq's face melting is directly inspired by that of Gabrielle opening the suitcase.


title: Kiss Me Deadly

text: In the film "Southland Tales", Richard Kelly pays homage to the film, showing the main characters watching the beginning on their television and later the opening of the case is shown on screens on board the mega-Zeppelin. Two notable rock acts have borrowed the film's title for a song title. The first was from UK punk act Generation X, featuring singer Billy Idol, from their self titled debut LP (1978); this song would be also be featured on the soundtrack to the 1998 film SLC Punk. The second was a 1988 hit single from former Runaways lead guitarist and glam metal solo performer Lita Ford. In 1999, "Kiss Me Deadly" was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."


title: Throat

text: In vertebrate anatomy, the throat is the front part of the neck, internally positioned in front of the vertebrae. It contains the pharynx and larynx. An important section of it is the epiglottis, separating the esophagus from the trachea (windpipe), preventing food and drinks being inhaled into the lungs. The throat contains various blood vessels, pharyngeal muscles, the nasopharyngeal tonsil, the tonsils, the palatine uvula, the trachea, the esophagus, and the vocal cords. Mammal throats consist of two bones, the hyoid bone and the clavicle. The "throat" is sometimes thought to be synonymous for the fauces.


title: Throat

text: It works with the mouth, ears and nose, as well as a number of other parts of the body. Its pharynx is connected to the mouth, allowing speech to occur, and food and liquid to pass down the throat. It is joined to the nose by the nasopharynx at the top of the throat, and to the ear by its Eustachian tube. The throat's trachea carries inhaled air to the bronchi of the lungs. The esophagus carries food through the throat to the stomach. Adenoids and tonsils help prevent infection and are composed of lymph tissue. The larynx contains vocal cords, the epiglottis (preventing food/liquid inhalation), and an area known as the subglottic larynx, in children it is the narrowest section of the upper part of the throat.


title: Throat

text: The "Jugulum" is a low part of the throat, located slightly above the breast. The term "Jugulum" is reflected both by the internal and external jugular veins, which pass through the "Jugulum".


title: Ken Langone

text: Kenneth Gerard Langone Sr. KSG (born September 16, 1935) is an American billionaire businessman, investor, and philanthropist, best known for organizing financing for the founders of The Home Depot. He has been a major donor to the Republican Party.


title: Ken Langone

text: Langone was born in Roslyn Heights, New York, to Italian American working-class parents. His father was a plumber and his mother a cafeteria worker. Langone's family has been described as having "a lot of love, but not a lot of money." He was a student at Bucknell University and the New York University Stern School of Business.


title: Ken Langone

text: In the early 1960s, Langone began his career at a Wall Street financial services company named R.W. Pressprich, where he helped develop new business. In 1968 Langone met and persuaded Ross Perot to let Pressprich handle Electronic Data Systems's IPO. In 1969, Langone would be named Pressprich's president.


title: Ken Langone

text: In 1974, Langone formed the venture capital firm Invemed. Langone organized financing for Bernard Marcus and Arthur Blank to found Home Depot. Now a national chain with over 400,000 employees, it is Langone's most notable business venture.


title: Ken Langone

text: Langone has been on the boards of Geeknet, General Electric, Database Technologies, ChoicePoint Inc., Unifi, and Yum! Brands, Inc.


title: Ken Langone

text: Langone was chairman of the New York Stock Exchange's Compensation Committee from 1999 to 2003. In 2004, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer filed a lawsuit against the New York Stock Exchange's former Chairman Richard Grasso to return $100 million to the NYSE that were part of his $139.5 million pay package. The lawsuit named Langone who had approved the pay package. Langone denied that the pay packages were illegal considering that the NYSE had direct knowledge of the board's decision. On July 1, 2008, the New York State Court of Appeals dismissed all claims against Grasso because the NYSE had changed its status from a nonprofit to a for-profit organization, which meant that the Attorney General had lost standing to sue Grasso.


title: Ken Langone

text: In July 2022, Langone helped found a group of U.S. business and policy leaders who share the goal of constructively engaging with China in order to improve U.S.-China relations.


title: Ken Langone

text: He lives in Sands Point, New York, and had previously lived on Elderfields Road in nearby Flower Hill.


title: Ken Langone

text: On January 13, 2021, Langone said he felt “betrayed” by Donald Trump's actions regarding the 2021 storming of the United States Capitol, echoing Langone's comments from 2017 on the Unite the Right rally.


title: Ken Langone

text: In 2018 Langone pledged $100 million in funding towards a $450 million program to make tuition free for all medical students at the NYU School of Medicine. Langone serves as the chair of the Board of Trustees of the NYU Langone Medical Center.


title: Ken Langone

text: In 2020, the Open Discourse Coalition was founded with funding from Ken Langone and various Bucknell alumni. Langone currently sits on the Advisory Board. He co-authored a letter in the Wall Street Journal about the organization and why he and many other alumni felt compelled to create the entity.


title: Ken Langone

text: He serves on the boards of The Ronald McDonald House of NY, CSIS, The Medal of Honor Foundation, and the Harlem Children's Zone.


title: Ken Langone

text: Langone is portrayed by actor Ray Iannicelli in the 2017 HBO Films production "The Wizard of Lies". In the film, Langone rejects an offer to invest money in the schemes of convicted Wall Street swindler Bernie Madoff. Langone is extensively featured in the documentary "" where he discusses his fierce rivalry with former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer.


The Netherlands national under-21 football team is the national under-21 team of the Netherlands and is controlled by the Royal Dutch Football Association. The team competes in the European Under-21 Championship, held every two years.


title: Netherlands national under-21 football team

text: Following the realignment of UEFA's youth competitions in 1976, the Dutch Under-21 team was formed. The team did not have a very good record, failing to qualify for nine of the fifteen tournaments. The team did not enter for the 1978 competition, but since then has reached the semi-finals twice, and qualified for the last eight on three other occasions.


text: Since the under-21 competition rules insist that players must be 21 or under at the start of a two-year competition, technically it is an U-23 competition. For this reason, the Netherlands' record in the preceding U-23 competitions is also shown. The first competitive match was in the "Under-23 Challenge", a match which they lost. The team qualified for the last eight of each of the three U-23 tournaments.


text: In 2006 the Netherlands national under-21 football team of coach Foppe de Haan won the 2006 European Under-21 Championship. Klaas-Jan Huntelaar became top scorer and player of the tournament with four goals, and also broke the all-time goalscoring record of 15 goals previously held by Roy Makaay and Arnold Jan Bruggink, in his last match with the team as he pushed this record to eighteen goals. The following year, Netherlands national under-21 football team successfully defended their title by winning the 2007 European Under-21 Championship in the final against Serbia with 4–1. Maceo Rigters was the top scorer of the competition with four goals and Royston Drenthe was the Player of the Tournament. The win meant that the Netherlands qualified for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. The team failed to qualify for the 2009 European Under-21 Championship, after losing out to Switzerland in their final qualifying match.


text: The Netherlands were randomly chosen to play against Bulgaria for the title in a one-off match in Sofia, which the Netherlands lost.


text: The following players have previously been called up to the Netherlands under-21 squad in the last year and remain eligible.


title: First day on the Somme

text: The first day on the Somme, 1 July 1916, was the beginning of the Battle of Albert the name given by the British to the first two weeks of the 141 days of the Battle of the Somme () in the First World War. Nine corps of the French Sixth Army and the British Fourth and Third armies attacked the German 2nd Army (General Fritz von Below) from Foucaucourt south of the Somme, northwards across the Somme and the Ancre to Serre and at Gommecourt, beyond, in the Third Army area. The objective of the attack was to capture the German first and second defensive positions from Serre south to the Albert–Bapaume road and the first position from the road south to Foucaucourt.


title: First day on the Somme

text: The German defence south of the road mostly collapsed and the French had "complete success" on both banks of the Somme, as did the British from Maricourt on the army boundary with the French northwards. XIII Corps took Montauban and reached all its objectives, XV Corps captured Mametz and isolated Fricourt. The III Corps attack on both sides of the Albert–Bapaume road was a disaster, making only a short advance south of La Boisselle, where the 34th Division suffered the most casualties of any Allied division on 1 July. Further north, X Corps captured part of the Redoubt (an earthwork fortification), failed opposite Thiepval and had a great but temporary success on the left flank, where the German front line was overrun and and Stuff redoubts captured by the 36th (Ulster) Division.


title: First day on the Somme

text: German counter-attacks during the afternoon recaptured most of the lost ground north of the Albert–Bapaume road and more British attacks against Thiepval were costly failures. On the north bank of the Ancre, the attack of VIII Corps was a disaster, with large numbers of British troops being shot down in no man's land. The VII Corps diversion at Gommecourt was also costly, with only a partial and temporary advance south of the village. The German defeats, from Foucaucourt to the Albert–Bapaume road, left the German defence on the south bank incapable of resisting another attack; a substantial German retreat began from the Flaucourt plateau to the west bank of the Somme close to Péronne. North of the Somme in the British area, Fricourt was abandoned by the Germans overnight.


title: First day on the Somme

text: Several truces were observed to recover wounded from no man's land on the British front; the Third Army diversion at Gommecourt cost against and the combined casualty count with the Fourth Army reached (19,240 of which had been fatal). The French Sixth Army suffered and the German 2nd Army suffered Orders were issued to the Anglo-French armies to continue the offensive on 2 July; a German counter-attack on the north bank of the Somme by the 12th Division, intended for the night of took until dawn on 2 July to begin and was destroyed by the French and British troops opposite. Since 1 July 1916, the British casualties on the First Day and the "meagre gains" have been a source of grief and controversy in Britain.


title: First day on the Somme

text: In July 1915, the French Commander in Chief Joseph Joffre held the first inter-Allied conference at Chantilly. In December, a second conference agreed a strategy of simultaneous attacks by the French, Russian, British and Italian armies. The British theatre of operations was in northern France and Flanders but in February 1916, Haig accepted Joffre's plan for a combined attack astride the Somme river, around 1 July; in April, the British Cabinet agreed to an offensive in France. The nature of a joint offensive on the Somme began to change almost immediately, when the German army attacked Verdun on 21 February. In March, Foch proposed a Somme offensive on a front, between Lassigny and the Somme with divisions and a British attack on a front from the Somme to Thiepval with French divisions intended for the joint offensive were soon diverted to Verdun and the offensive was eventually reduced to a main effort by the British and a supporting attack by the French Sixth Army.


title: First day on the Somme

text: The Somme was to be the first mass offensive mounted by the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and the first battle to involve a large number of New Army divisions, many composed of Pals battalions that had formed after Kitchener's call for volunteers in August 1914. By the end of the Gallipoli Campaign, twelve British divisions were in Egypt and from 4 February to 20 June, nine were transferred to France. From Britain and Egypt the 34th and 35th divisions arrived in January, the 31st and 46th (North Midland) divisions in February, the 29th, 39th, 1st Australian and 2nd Australian divisions in March, the New Zealand Division in April, the 41st, 61st (2nd South Midland) and 63rd (2nd Northumbrian) divisions in May, the 40th, 60th (2/2nd London), 4th Australian and 5th Australian divisions in June and the 11th (Northern) Division on 3 July. The 55th (West Lancashire) and 56th (1/1st London) divisions were reassembled, a battalion of the Newfoundland Regiment and the South African Brigade joined in April, followed by a contingent of the Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps in July.


title: First day on the Somme

text: Despite considerable debate among German staff officers, General Erich von Falkenhayn, the head of ("OHL", the supreme command of the German Army) insisted on a tactic of rigid defence of the front line in 1916 and implied after the war that the psychology of German soldiers, shortage of manpower and lack of reserves made the policy inescapable, since the troops necessary to seal off breakthroughs did not exist. High losses incurred in holding ground by a policy of no retreat were preferable to higher losses, voluntary withdrawals and the effect of a belief that soldiers had discretion to avoid battle. When a more flexible policy was substituted later, discretion was still reserved to army commanders. Despite the certainty by mid-June of an Anglo-French attack on the Somme against the 2nd Army, Falkenhayn sent only four divisions, keeping eight in the western strategic reserve. No divisions were moved from the 6th Army, despite it holding a shorter line with divisions and three of the divisions in reserve being in the 6th Army area. The maintenance of the strength of the 6th Army at the expense of the 2nd Army on the Somme, indicated that Falkenhayn intended a counter-offensive against the British to be made closer to Arras north of the Somme front, once the British offensive had been shattered.


title: First day on the Somme

text: The offensives of 1915 showed that attacks would inevitably be slow and costly; on 8 January 1916, GQG issued (Instruction on Small Unit Offensive Operations) and on 26 January (Instruction on large Unit Offensive Operations). On 20 April, General Ferdinand Foch, commander of ("GAN", Northern Army Group) issued (The GAN Commander's Instruction on Offensive Battle) an pamphlet on the stages and processes of an attack on enemy positions prepared in depth. The pamphlet was a substantial revision of , derived from ("Purpose and Conditions of Comprehensive Offensive Action" 16 April 1915), a manual compiled from analysis of the fighting in 1914, the basis of French offensive planning in 1915. Battle would now be methodical until the power of resistance of the defender was broken by "moral, material and physical degradation", while the attacker retained the ability to continue the offensive; a breakthrough was unlikely but not ruled out. Co-ordination of artillery and infantry was fundamental to the process, in which artillery would destroy defences and then infantry would occupy them, infantry objectives being determined by the capacity of artillery to prepare the way and limit casualties.


title: First day on the Somme

text: Artillery bombardments were to be co-ordinated with infantry attacks, various types of artillery being given targets suitable for their characteristics, for the cumulative destruction of field defences and the killing of German infantry. Heavy artillery and mortars were to be used for the destruction of field fortifications, howitzers and light mortars for the destruction of trenches, machine-gun and observation posts; heavy guns and mortars to destroy fortified villages and concrete strong points. Longer-range guns were to engage German artillery with counter-battery fire, to deprive German infantry of artillery support during the attack, when French infantry were at their most vulnerable. Wire cutting was to be performed by field artillery, firing high-explosive (HE) shells and supported by specialist wire-cutting sections of infantry, which would go out the night before an attack. During the attack, the field artillery would fire a linear barrage on trenches and the edges of woods and villages. Infantry tactics were to be based on reconnaissance, clear objectives, liaison with flanking units and the avoidance of disorganisation within attacking units. General attacks would need to be followed by the systematic capture of remaining defences for jumping-off positions in the next general attack.


title: First day on the Somme

text: In 1915, British tactical thinking had been based on the experience of its Western Front battles, particularly the Battle of Loos in September and the study of French and German experience in translated manuals and pamphlets. British planners knew the importance of organised artillery firepower and the integration of types of weapons and equipment. Creeping barrages, smoke screens and cloud gas discharges were to be used along with aircraft, Stokes mortars (a light trench mortar), Lewis guns (a light machine-gun) and elaborate signals systems (to counter chronic communication failures) as soon as the infantry attacked. Troops were to advance in a succession of lines grouped into waves, followed by parties to consolidate captured ground or pass through the leading troops and continue the advance.


title: First day on the Somme

text: The 9th (Scottish) Division had attacked at Loos with four battalions on a front wide, each battalion in three waves. A second battalion followed each of the leading battalions in the same formation, ready to leapfrog beyond and a second brigade followed the first as a reserve. Six lines of infantry, with the soldiers apart had confronted the German defence. Lines and waves had been made thinner and shallower after 1915. On 14 July 1916, in the attack on Longueval, the 9th (Scottish) Division advanced with four battalions. Companies were arranged in columns of platoons, creating four platoon waves apart. One of the attacking brigades advanced with each battalion on a two-company front with two companies behind and a second battalion following on. Each section of the front was attacked by sixteen platoon waves. Six platoons had attacked on a front of about , roughly one soldier every .


title: First day on the Somme

text: On the Somme front, the construction plan ordered by Falkenhayn in January 1915 had been completed. Barbed wire obstacles had been enlarged from one belt wide to two belts wide and about apart. Double and triple thickness wire was used and laid high. The front line had been increased from one trench to three, dug apart, to create a front position, the first trench () occupied by sentry groups, the second () for the front-trench garrison and the third trench for local reserves. The trenches were traversed and had sentry-posts in concrete recesses built into the parapet. Dugouts had been deepened from to , apart and large enough for An intermediate line of strongpoints () about behind the front position, wired for all-round defence, had also been built. Communication trenches ran back to the reserve lines, renamed the second position, which was as well built and wired as the first position. The second position was beyond the range of Allied field artillery, to force an attacker to stop an advance for long enough to move artillery forward.


title: First day on the Somme

text: For long-distance reconnaissance, bombing and attacks on (the Imperial German Flying Corps up to October, then , [German Air Force]), the 9th (Headquarters) Wing of the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) was moved to the Somme front, with 21, 27, 60 squadrons and part of 70 Squadron. The Fourth Army had the support of IV Brigade RFC, with two squadrons of the 14th (Army) Wing, four squadrons of the 3rd Wing and 1 Kite Balloon Squadron, with a section for each corps. Corps squadrons, 3, 4, 9 and 15 squadrons had for counter-battery work, for contact patrol, trench reconnaissance, destructive bombardment and other duties and nine aircraft in reserve. VII Corps (Lieutenant-General Thomas Snow) was given 8 Squadron with and 5 Kite Balloon Section. On the Somme the RFC had against the German 2nd Army aircraft establishment, which also had to face the French on the south bank of the Somme (The Anglo-French air effort considerably outnumbered the Germans until mid-July). Protection for corps aircraft was to be provided by standing patrols of pairs of aircraft and offensive sweeps by the two army squadrons. Bombing attacks were to be made on the railways behind the German front, with the main effort beginning on 1 July, to ensure that damage could not be repaired in the days after the beginning of the offensive. Troops, transport columns, dumps and headquarters behind the battlefront were to be attacked and the ammunition depots at Mons, Namur and Lille were to be specially attacked. The French Sixth Army (General Émile Fayolle), had


title: First day on the Somme

text: The British had substantially increased the amount of artillery on the Western Front after the Battle of Loos in late 1915 but the length of front to be bombarded on the Somme led to the preparatory bombardment being planned to last for five days. There had been a debate about the merits of a short hurricane bombardment but there were insufficient guns quickly to destroy German field defences and be certain that barbed wire was cut, given the dependence of the artillery on air observation and the uncertain weather. The artillery had to cut barbed wire and neutralise German artillery with counter-battery fire. The British artillery fired more than shells during the preliminary bombardment, more than in the first year of the war. On 1 July, another were fired; the guns could be heard on Hampstead Heath, away. While this weight of bombardment was new for the British, it was common on the Western Front; at the Second Battle of Artois in May 1915, there had been a six-day preparatory bombardment with over shells. British shell production had increased since the shell scandal of 1915 but quality had been sacrificed for quantity. Shrapnel shells were virtually useless against entrenched positions and required accurate fuze settings to cut wire; very little high-explosive ammunition had been manufactured for field artillery. The French Sixth Army had guns and howitzers, with a much larger supply of high-explosive ammunition for field artillery and far more experienced personnel.


title: First day on the Somme

text: In March, the two British cavalry corps were disbanded and the divisions distributed to the armies and the new Reserve Corps (General Hubert Gough). In June, the Reserve Corps was reinforced and became the Reserve Army. The Reserve Army cavalry was to operate combined with infantry and artillery, ready to act as a "conveyor belt", to exploit a success by the Fourth Army, with the 25th Division in the lead followed by two cavalry divisions and then II Corps. In mid-June, II Corps was transferred to the Fourth Army; the French Sixth Army contained four cavalry divisions. In late June, favourable intelligence reports and the reduction of the French commitment for the Somme offensive led to a change of plan by the British. Should the German army collapse, the cavalry was to follow up, capture Bapaume and take post on the right flank, to provide a flank guard of all-arms detachments facing east, as the main body of cavalry and the infantry advanced northwards. The 1st, 2nd (Indian) and 3rd Cavalry divisions were to assemble by zero hour west of Albert around Buire, Bresle, Bonny and La Neuville, ready to move forward or remain and then return to billets behind Amiens depending on events.


title: First day on the Somme

text: A BEF manual published on 8 May 1916 (SS 109, "Training of Divisions For Offensive Action"), described successions of lines to add driving power to the attack, to reach the objective with the capacity to consolidate the captured ground against counter-attack. In the Fourth Army Tactical Notes of May 1916, battalions were allowed to attack on a front of in about apart. Supporting lines were to pass through the leading ones, to avoid excessive demands on the energy and ability of individual soldiers. Weight of numbers was rejected as a tactic; each platoon was to carry half the burden of a brigade attack for a few minutes, before being relieved by a fresh wave. Platoons were divided into functions, fighting, mopping-up, support and carrying; the fighting platoons were to press on as the moppers-up secured the ground behind them. Support and carrying platoons could pick their way through artillery barrages with the tools and weapons needed to consolidate and defeat German counter-attacks. Some troops in carrying platoons had about of equipment and tools, whereas troops in the advanced platoons carried a rifle, bayonet, of ammunition, iron ration (an emergency ration of preserved food, tea, sugar and salt), two grenades, pick, shovel or entrenching tool, four empty sandbags, two gas helmets, wire cutters, a smoke candle and a water-bottle. In the French army, the experience of 1915 showed that despite the power of French bombardments, infantry would enter a chaotic environment, full of German pockets of resistance and individuals who had been by-passed. By mid-1916 much of the French infantry in the Sixth Army were specialist rifle-and-bayonet men, bombers, rifle grenadiers or light machine-gun crews. Attacking waves were spread wider and companies trained to manoeuvre in small groups, to get behind surviving German defences, as (trench cleaners) armed with hand-grenades and revolvers, searched captured ground for stray Germans and hidden machine-gunners, although such methods did not come into general use until later in the year.


title: First day on the Somme

text: The chalk soil of the Somme was ideal for tunnelling and the British inherited a number of mine workings begun by the French army. The British tunnelling companies placed 19 mines beneath the German front positions and prepared Russian saps from the British front line into no man's land, to be opened at Zero Hour and allow the infantry to attack the German positions from a comparatively short distance. The mines on the Somme were the largest yet in the war. The mines were to destroy the German defences and to provide shelter in no man's land for the advancing infantry. Eight large and eleven small mines were prepared for the first day of the battle; three large mines of and seven mines around . When the mines were blown, infantry was to rush forward to seize the craters; the largest mines, each containing of ammonal, were on either side of the Albert–Bapaume road near La Boisselle, Y Sap mine north of the road and Lochnagar mine to the south. H3, the other large mine was planted under Hawthorn Ridge Redoubt near Beaumont Hamel, containing of explosive. The mines were to be detonated at two minutes before zero hour, except for the Hawthorn Ridge mine, which was to be sprung at (The small mine at Kasino Point was mistimed and blown after the infantry attack had commenced.)


title: First day on the Somme

text: From 1 January to 3 July 1916 the BEF was reinforced by and the number of heavy guns increased from The new divisions needed supply trains a week to meet daily needs and a large number of extra trains to transport heavy artillery ammunition. Until mid-June, ammunition supply for the BEF needed per week, then rose to |45 to 90 trains per week, to deliver a stock of of munitions. Ammunition expenditure became a concern by 12 July but deliveries to the area behind the Fourth Army kept pace, although transport from railheads to the guns was not always maintained. In the weeks before 1 July, an extra seven trains a day were sufficient to deliver ammunition. In the rear of the Fourth Army, huge encampments were built for troops, horses, artillery and workshops, dumps were filled with equipment, reservoirs and pipelines; power stations, light railways roads and telephone networks were constructed. Over of petrol per month was needed for the lorry fleet, moving supplies up to from railheads to the front line and a million Brodie helmets were delivered between January and June. In the 37th Division area, were needed to dig of trenches, jumping-off points, command-posts, dug-outs, machine-gun emplacements and ammunition stores, for wiring and for maintenance. In the French Sixth Army sector, one railway line from Amiens led to Bray on the north bank but on the south bank there were no rail lines; road-trains carried supplies from Amiens to Foucaucourt.


title: First day on the Somme

text: In March and April, eight German divisions were believed to be in reserve opposite the British from the Somme to the North Sea coast. Divisions in reserve behind the 4th Army were then moved south to Artois in the 6th Army area. From 4 to 14 June, the success of the Brusilov Offensive became apparent and agent reports showed increased railway movement from Belgium to Germany. The final BEF military intelligence estimate before 1 July had battalions opposite the Fourth Army and in reserve or close enough to reach the battlefield in the first week. Five of the seven German divisions in reserve had been engaged at Verdun and some divisions had been transferred from France to the Eastern Front. Men of the 1916 conscription class were appearing among German prisoners of war, suggesting that the German army had been weakened and that the British could break down the German front line and force a battle of manoeuvre on the defenders. In late June, the British part of the Somme plan was amended, rapidly to capture Bapaume and envelop the German defences northwards to Arras, rather than southwards to Péronne. An increase in the number of trains moving from Germany to Belgium was discovered but the quality of German troops opposite the British was thought to have been much reduced. The true number of German divisions in reserve in France was ten, with six opposite the British, double the number the British knew about. Reports of work continuing on the German defences opposite the Fourth Army in March and April, led the planners to adopt a less optimistic view, particularly due to the news about very deep shell-proof shelters being dug under German front trenches, which were far less vulnerable to bombardment.


title: First day on the Somme

text: British planning for the offensive had begun in April, with a Fourth Army proposal for a methodical advance to the high ground around Thiepval and thence to the Bapaume–Péronne road. Haig had exhaustive negotiations with Joffre and rejected the concept in favour of the capture of the ridge north of Péronne to assist a French crossing of the Somme further south. Diversion of French divisions to Verdun and the assumption by the British of the main role in the offensive, led to revisions of the plan towards an ambitious attempt at strategic attrition, through a breakthrough and a battle of manoeuvre with distant objectives. The French Sixth Army, in "GAN", was the last of the three French armies originally intended for the Somme, the Tenth Army and Second Army having been sent to Verdun. Joffre placed XX Corps north of the river, next to the British XIII Corps, the southernmost Fourth Army formation. British plans were made by a process of negotiation between Haig and General Henry Rawlinson, the Fourth Army commander. Haig became more optimistic at what could be achieved early in an offensive, given the examples of Gorlice-Tarnów in 1915 and at Verdun early in 1916. Rawlinson favoured a methodical attack from the beginning of the offensive, in which belts of the German defences about deep, would be pulverised by artillery and then occupied by infantry. An attempt to reach deeper objectives towards the German second position, risked infantry being counter-attacked beyond the cover of field artillery but had the advantage of exploiting a period when German artillery was being withdrawn.


title: First day on the Somme

text: On 16 April, Rawlinson announced the objectives to the corps commanders, in which III, X and VIII corps would capture Pozières, Grandcourt and Serre on the first day and XIII and XV corps would have objectives to be agreed later. On 19 April, Rawlinson wrote that an attempt to reach the German second line on the first day was doubtful, an extension of the attack in the south on Montauban required another division and the inclusion of Gommecourt to the north, was beyond the resources of the Fourth Army. Rawlinson also wrote that long bombardment was dependent on the French, the availability of ammunition and the endurance of gun-crews; the exploitation of a successful attack would need a substantial number of fresh divisions.


title: First day on the Somme

text: The process of discussion and negotiation also took place between Rawlinson and the corps commanders and between corps and divisional commanders. For the first time daily objectives were set, rather than an unlimited advance and discretion was granted in the means to achieve them. When the frontage of attack had been decided, corps headquarters settled the details and arranged the building of the infrastructure of attack: dugouts, magazines, observation posts, telephone lines, roads, light railways, tramways and liaison with neighbouring corps and the RFC. For the first time, the army headquarters co-ordinated the artillery arrangements with an Army Artillery Operation Order, in which tasks and timetable were laid down and corps artillery officers left to decide the means to achieve them.


title: First day on the Somme

text: On 16 June, Haig discussed the Anglo-French intentions for the campaign, which were to relieve pressure on the French at Verdun, assist Italy and Russia by preventing the transfer of divisions from the Western Front and to inflict losses on the (German army in the west), through the capture of Pozières Ridge from Montauban to the Ancre, the area from the Ancre to Serre to protect the flank, then exploit the position gained according to circumstances. If German resistance collapsed, an advance east would be pressed far enough to pass through the German defences and the attack would turn north, to envelop the German defences as far as Monchy le Preux near Arras, with cavalry on the outer flank to defend against a counter-attack. Should a continuation of the advance beyond the first objective not be possible, the main effort could be transferred elsewhere, while the Fourth Army continued to mount local attacks.


title: First day on the Somme

text: On 28 June, the Fourth Army headquarters instructed that if the Germans collapsed, the closest infantry would exploit without waiting for cavalry; the 19th (Western) and 49th (West Riding) divisions (in local reserve) would be committed along the Albert–Bapaume road and parallel to it to the north. The cavalry, which had assembled west of Albert, was not to move until roads had been cleared for their advance. Haig had formulated a plan in which success of any magnitude could be exploited but Rawlinson had a much more modest intention of small advances onto high ground and pauses to consolidate, to repulse German counter-attacks, which led to an "unhappy compromise".


title: First day on the Somme

text: Many of the German units on the Somme had arrived in 1914 and made great efforts to fortify the defensive line, particularly with barbed-wire entanglements beyond the front trench, with fewer troops. Railways, roads and waterways connected the battlefront to the Ruhr, the source of material for , dug-outs underground, big enough for each, excavated every . In February 1916, following the (Autumn Battle, Second Battle of Champagne) in 1915, a third defensive position another back from the was begun and was nearly complete on the Somme front when the battle began. The German artillery was organised in (barrage sectors); each infantry officer was expected to know the batteries covering his section of the front line and the batteries had to be ready to engage fleeting targets. A telephone system with lines deep back from the front line linked the artillery.


title: First day on the Somme

text: The Somme defences had two inherent weaknesses that the rebuilding had not remedied. The front trenches were on a forward slope, lined by white chalk from the subsoil and easily seen by observers on the British side of no man's land. The defences were crowded towards the front trench, with a regiment having two battalions near the front-trench system and the reserve battalion divided between the and the second position, all within of the front line; most troops were within of the front line, in the new deep dugouts. The concentration of troops forward guaranteed that they would face the bulk of an artillery bombardment, directed by ground observers on clearly marked lines. Digging and wiring of a new third position had begun in May; civilians were moved away and stocks of ammunition and hand-grenades were increased in the front-line.


title: First day on the Somme

text: By mid-June, General Fritz von Below (commander of the 2nd Army) and Crown Prince Rupprecht (commander of the 6th Army) expected an attack on the 2nd Army, which held the front from north of Gommecourt to Noyon south of the Somme. Falkenhayn was more concerned about an offensive in Alsace-Lorraine and an attack on the 6th Army that held the front north of the 2nd Army, from Gommecourt to St Eloi near Ypres. In April, Falkenhayn had suggested a spoiling attack by the 6th Army but the demands of the offensive at Verdun made it impossible. In May, Below proposed a preventive attack (a suggestion latter reduced, in June, to an operation from Ovillers to St Pierre Divion) but was only assigned one more artillery regiment, some labour battalions and captured Russian heavy artillery. On 6 June, Below reported that air reconnaissance showed that attacks at Fricourt and Gommecourt were possible and that the French troops south of the Somme had been reinforced. XVII Corps held the ground opposite the French but it was overstretched, with twelve regiments holding of front line with no reserves.


title: First day on the Somme

text: In mid-June, Falkenhayn remained sceptical of an offensive on the Somme, as a great success would lead to operations in Belgium; an offensive in Alsace-Lorraine would take the war and its devastation into Germany. More railway activity, fresh digging and camp extensions around Albert opposite the 2nd Army was seen by German air observers on spies reported an imminent offensive. On 24 June, a British prisoner spoke of a five-day bombardment to begin on 26 June and local units expected an attack within days. On 27 June, 14 observation balloons were visible, one for each British division. No German reinforcements were sent to the area until 1 July and only then to the 6th Army, that had also been given control of the three divisions in "OHL" reserve behind it. At Verdun, on 24 June, Crown Prince Wilhelm was ordered to conserve troops, ammunition and equipment and further restrictions were imposed on 1 July when two divisions were taken under "OHL" command. By 30 June, the German air strength on the 2nd Army front was six (reconnaissance flights) with four (artillery flights) with (Bomber-Fighter Squadron 1) with (Bomber-Fighter Flight 32) with and a (single-seat fighter detachment) with , a total of .


title: First day on the Somme

text: South of the river, the XXXV Corps (the 51st, 61st and 121st Divisions, backed by of heavy artillery) attacked two hours after the offensive began on the north bank. The 61st Division was right-flank guard for the I Colonial Corps near the river. A French attack of any great size on the south bank had been considered impossible by the German command and after the 10th Bavarian Division was transferred north of the river to reinforce the XIV Reserve Corps, divisional frontages were made even wider on the south side of the river, the three remaining divisions of XVII Corps using their third regiment to fill the gap at the cost of having no reserve. The French preliminary bombardment caused the Germans many casualties and destroyed many machine-guns and mortars. When the attack began, concealed by mist, the German defenders were surprised and overrun. The French artillery had batteries per of front, balloons were opposite the German 11th Division alone and French artillery observation aircraft were flown so low by their pilots over Estrées that German soldiers could see the faces of the crews. The division had only two field artillery regiments and part of one regiment sent as reinforcement, with no heavy guns for counter-battery fire, except for periodic support from a small number of heavy guns covering all of the south side of the river.


title: First day on the Somme

text: The German artillery group around Estrées, Soyécourt and Fay attempted a systematic bombardment of the French front line on 30 June. The French replied with shells on one German field regiment alone, which knocked out three guns. By the time of the attack of 1 July, German artillery on the south bank had been hit by and had almost been silenced by Only eight heavy batteries were available to the Germans on the south bank; at the French barrage lifted off the German front line and three mines were blown under a redoubt at the village of Fay. A measure of surprise was gained, despite losses to German flanking fire from beyond the southern flank of the attack. Grenadier Regiment 10 had been subjected to a "torrent" of fire overnight, which had forced the German infantry to shelter in mine galleries. A gas bombardment was synchronised with the French infantry attack and the mine explosions at killed many of the sheltering troops. By the German defences had been overwhelmed and the garrisons killed or captured; such reinforcements as existed were moved forward to occupy the second position south of Assevillers.


title: First day on the Somme

text: On the south bank, the I Colonial Corps (2nd, 3rd, 16th Colonial and the 99th Territorial divisions along with ) also attacked two hours after the main assault. The 2nd and 3rd Colonial divisions, advanced between XXXV Corps and the river and overran the first line of the German 121st Division, holding the line south from the Somme, in fifteen minutes, taking Dompierre and Bequincourt. On the French left flank, Frise held out until the village was re-bombarded and then taken by a second attack at The 2nd and 3rd Colonial divisions began probing of the German second position held by the III Battalion, Infantry Regiment 60 around Assevillers and Herbécourt. Assevillers was captured at Herbécourt was attacked from the north-west at and captured, then lost to a German counter-attack. The colonial divisions took for very few casualties. The attack on the south bank had advanced .


title: First day on the Somme

text: North of the Somme, the French XX Corps consisted of the 11th, 39th, 72nd and 153rd divisions, with of heavy artillery. The 11th and 39th divisions attacked at the commanders of the 1st Liverpool Pals (part of the 30th Division (XIII Corps) and the French 153rd Infantry Regiment advancing together. At , north-west of Curlu, which contained many machine-guns and was protected by Menuisiers Trench further forward, the attack went "like clockwork". The 79th Regiment, whose final objective was beyond the start line, found that the French bombardment had destroyed much of the German fortifications and that the creeping barrage kept the Germans under cover. Only at (in the 39th Division area, where part of the wood was held by the Germans for several days) and at Curlu (in the 11th Division area on the north bank) were the Germans able to conduct an organised defence.


title: First day on the Somme

text: The 37th Regiment (11th Division) attacked Curlu and received massed small-arms fire; the regiment was repulsed from the western fringe of the village before attacks were suspended for a re-bombardment, by which time the village was outflanked on both sides. Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment 6 (BRIR 6) recorded the first attack at after drumfire (so many shells exploding that the reports merged into a rumble) which began at followed by two more until drumfire fell again at and the remaining garrison was ordered to retire. Most of BRIR 6 was thrown in piecemeal from the Somme to Montauban and destroyed, suffering The French did not exploit their success, because the British did not advance to their second objective beyond Montauban. Four counter-attacks from Hardecourt were repulsed and by mid-morning had been taken and an advance of had been achieved.


title: First day on the Somme

text: The southern flank of the British line was held by XIII Corps, which attacked Montauban with the New Army 18th (Eastern) and 30th divisions. The 30th Division took its objectives by and the 18th (Eastern) Division completed its advance by German defences south of the Albert–Bapaume road were far less developed than to the north and were visible from territory held by the British and French. The infantry advanced behind a creeping barrage and had the benefit of the heavy artillery of French XX Corps to the south. Much of the German artillery in the area had been put out of action during the preliminary bombardment and the German second and third lines were incomplete and had no deep dugouts, except in the first trench. On the right of the British attack, most of the German infantry and machine-guns were destroyed before the British advance; a river mist hampered the remaining defenders. In the chaos, alarmist reports were received that Bernafay and Trônes woods had been captured and before noon, every available man, including clerks and cooks was ordered forward to the second position. The 12th Reserve Division was ordered to prepare a counter-attack from Montauban to Mametz overnight but by midnight the division had only reached the second position. The 30th Division suffered the 18th (Eastern) Division RIR 109 and BRIR 6


title: First day on the Somme

text: The village of Mametz was attacked by the 7th Division, which on the right flank had only of no man's land to cross. The infantry advanced behind a creeping field artillery barrage that lifted slowly according to a timetable and moved towards a standing barrage fired by the heavy artillery that lifted to the next objective at set times. The right and central brigades attacked on a front, from support trenches behind the British front line. Crossing no man's land led to few casualties but far more were inflicted as the battalions advanced uphill to the village. The east end was captured but several attempts on the north and west ends were repulsed. After a series of bombardments and when British troops further south began to menace the supply routes of the garrison, resistance collapsed and the village was occupied.


title: First day on the Somme

text: The west side of the village was attacked by the 20th Brigade, which had to fight forward for most of the day. The infantry pushed on to ground facing Mametz Wood and Willow Stream, outflanking Fricourt to the north, though the objectives further beyond Mametz were not reached. Much of the front of the 7th Division was opposite Reserve Infantry Regiment 109 (RIR 109), of the 28th Reserve Division, which should have been relieved on the night of 30 June and which received a warning of the attack from a listening station at La Boisselle. Most of the regiment was caught in their deep shelters under the front trench and cut off from telephone communication. Most of the supporting machine-guns and artillery was put out of action early on. Reinforcements were sent to the second position but not ordered to counter-attack, due to uncertainty about the situation at Montauban and the need to secure Mametz Wood. The 7th Division suffered


title: First day on the Somme

text: The village of Fricourt lay in a bend in the front line, where it turned eastwards for before swinging south again to the Somme River. XV Corps was to avoid a frontal assault and attack either side of the village, to isolate the defenders. The 20th Brigade of the 7th Division was to capture the west end of Mametz and swing left, creating a defensive flank along Willow Stream, facing Fricourt from the south, as the 22nd Brigade waited in the British front line, ready to exploit a German retirement from the village. The 21st Division advance was to pass north of Fricourt, to reach the north bank of Willow Stream beyond Fricourt and Fricourt Wood. To protect infantry from enfilade fire from the village, the triple Tambour mines were blown beneath the Tambour salient on the western fringe of the village, to raise a "lip" of earth, to obscure the view from the village. The 21st Division made some progress and penetrated to the rear of Fricourt and the 50th Brigade of the 17th (Northern) Division, held the front line opposite the village.


title: First day on the Somme

text: The 10th West Yorkshire Regiment, was required to advance close by Fricourt and suffered the worst battalion losses of the day. A company from the 7th Green Howards made an unplanned attack directly against the village and was annihilated. Reserve Infantry Regiment 111, opposite the 21st Division, were severely affected by the bombardment and many dug-outs were blocked by shell explosions. One company was reduced to before the British attack and a reinforcement party failed to get through the British artillery-fire, taking post in Round Wood, where it was able to repulse the 64th Brigade. The rest of the regimental reserves were used to block the route to Contalmaison. The loss of Mametz and the advance of the 21st Division made Fricourt untenable and the garrison was withdrawn during the night. The 17th Division occupied the village virtually unopposed early on 2 July and took several prisoners. The 21st Division suffered and the 50th Brigade of the 17th Division


title: First day on the Somme

text: The 34th Division (New Army) was to attack along the Albert–Bapaume road, aided by the blowing of Lochnagar mine and Y Sap mine (the largest mine explosions of the day) either side of La Boisselle. The mine at Y Sap, north of the village, caused no casualties as the Germans had evacuated the area in time but the springing of the Lochnagar mine, south of the village, temporarily trapped German troops in shelters nearby and the position was lost. Parties of the Grimsby Chums got into the Lochnagar mine crater before being pinned down by German small-arms fire. The Tyneside Scottish Brigade was to attack up Mash Valley and against La Boisselle at the Glory Hole ( to the French and to the Germans). The Tyneside Irish were in reserve, ready to advance and capture the second objective from Contalmaison to Pozières.


title: First day on the Somme

text: At zero hour, the Tyneside Scottish Brigade started its advance from the Tara–Usna Line (a British reserve position behind the front line) to cross of open ground before they reached no man's land. Despite machine-gun fire, a party of around survived to advance up Sausage Valley, south of La Boisselle, almost to the edge of Contalmaison. The survivors were captured after making the furthest British advance of the day, about . The positions of Reserve Infantry Regiment 110 had been severely damaged in the bombardment but the regiment was forewarned of the British attack by a device, which eavesdropped on British telephone signals and allowed the Germans to withdraw before the Y Sap mine exploded. The 34th Division suffered the worst casualties of the day,


title: First day on the Somme

text: The 8th Division attacked the Ovillers spur, which was north of the Albert–Bapaume road. The division had to cross of no man's land and advance towards German trenches, sited to exploit spurs running down from the ridge. The only approach to the German lines was up Mash Valley, under the guns in La Boisselle to the south, Ovillers to the front and the Thiepval spur to the north. All three brigades attacked, the 23rd Brigade up Mash Valley, where reached the German second trench and then held about of the front trench, until The centre brigade reached the second line, before being forced back to the British front line and the left-hand brigade managed to reach the third trench, while German counter-bombardments cut off the leading troops from reinforcements. Co-ordination by the British artillery and infantry failed, the field artillery lifting to the final objective and the heavy artillery lifting an hour before the attack, leaving the German defenders unmolested as they repulsed the infantry. Ovillers was defended by Infantry Regiment 180, which had suffered in the bombardment. Many of the German defences were smashed, except on the right at The Nab. The British advance was met by massed small-arms fire at , which cut down many men, after which a bombing fight began. British penetrations were contained by German troops in communication trenches on the flanks. The two battalions of the regiment in the area suffered and the 8th Division


title: First day on the Somme

text: The salient and Thiepval village were attacked by the New Army 32nd Division. The Glasgow Commercials advanced into no man's land at until they were from the German front line. At zero hour, the British rushed the trench before the garrison could react and captured the Redoubt. Attempts to exploit the success were met by machine-gun fire from the (Wonderwork to the British) and the British were not able to advance further. The capture of the redoubt was the only permanent success in the northern sector. The 49th (West Riding) Division, in reserve, went forward mid-morning in support of the 32nd Division, although the commander, Major-General Rycroft, had suggested that it would have more effect by reinforcing the success of the 36th (Ulster) Division. The 146th Brigade attacked Thiepval through the 32nd Division area and then the 49th (West Riding) Division was ordered to send any uncommitted battalions direct to the 36th (Ulster) Division. The area was defended by two battalions of Reserve Infantry Regiment 99, whose machine-gun posts survived the bombardment and which began firing as soon as the British attacked. The 3rd Company, Infantry Regiment 180 was annihilated in hand-to-hand fighting at Redoubt. The garrison of Thiepval emerged from the shelters and cellars of the village before the British arrived and cut down the attackers with small-arms fire, leaving a "wall of dead" in front of the position. The 32nd Division suffered and the 49th (West Riding) Division


title: First day on the Somme

text: The 36th (Ulster) Division attacked between Thiepval and the Ancre River against Redoubt and gained a "spectacular victory". The preliminary artillery bombardment, which included support from French batteries firing gas-shell and a smoke screen from trench mortars, was more successful than on other parts of the front north of the Albert–Bapaume road. The infantry crept into no man's land before the attack, rushed the German front trench and then pressed on. The defeat of the neighbouring divisions left the 36th (Ulster) Division flanks unsupported and the German defenders on either side were free to rake the division from three sides. German artillery began a barrage () along no man's land which isolated the most advanced Irish troops, who briefly reached the German second line, captured Redoubt and closed on Stuff redoubt.


title: First day on the Somme

text: Opposite the 36th (Ulster) Division was III Battalion, Reserve Infantry Regiment 99 (RIR 99) and I and III battalions of Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment 8 (BRIR 8). The German units suffered severe casualties due to the British bombardment, which destroyed much of the front position, particularly west of Redoubt. The positions were so quickly overrun by the Irish that little return fire could be opened. II Battalion, BRIR 8 was ordered to recapture the redoubt but the order was delayed and all available troops were sent to attack from Goat Redoubt and Grandcourt. In the confusion, few of the German troops were able to assemble; the counter-attack began piecemeal and was repulsed several times, until a bombardment and another attack by two fresh battalions at about forced the Irish out of the redoubt. The 36th (Ulster) Division suffered


title: First day on the Somme

text: The northern flank of the Fourth Army was held by VIII Corps (Lieutenant-General Aylmer Hunter-Weston). Three divisions were to attack on the first day, with the 48th (South Midland) Division in reserve, except for two battalions that held a stretch between the Third and Fourth armies and two battalions that were attached to the 4th Division.


title: First day on the Somme

text: The 29th Division attacked towards Beaumont-Hamel. Part of the attack was filmed and showed the detonation of a mine beneath Hawthorn Ridge Redoubt at ten minutes before the infantry attack. The detonation of the mine alerted the Germans and British troops failed to occupy all of the mine crater before German troops could take over the far lip. Many troops of both brigades were shot down in no man's land, which was dominated by Redan Ridge and then caught by German artillery barrages. White German signal rockets were seen and taken for British success flares, which led the divisional commander, Major-General de Lisle, to order the 88th Brigade from reserve to exploit the success. The brigade included the Newfoundland Regiment, which advanced on open ground from reserve trenches back from the British front line.


title: First day on the Somme

text: The Newfoundland advance avoided the congestion of dead and wounded in communication trenches but many of the troops became casualties to German small-arms fire while still behind their front line. Some Newfoundland troops got across no man's land near Y Ravine but were held up by uncut wire. Most of the German shelters and Beaumont-Hamel were derelict and shell-craters overlapped. Reserve Infantry Regiment 119, who had been sheltering under the village in survived and with other units at (Y Ravine) and the and dugouts, engaged the British troops from the wreckage of the trenches. The Newfoundlanders suffered a loss, second only to that of the 10th Battalion, West Yorkshire Regiment, which suffered at Fricourt, south of the Albert–Bapaume road. The 29th Division suffered


title: First day on the Somme

text: The 4th Division attacked between Serre and Beaumont-Hamel and captured the Quadrilateral () but could not exploit the success, because of the repulse by the Germans of the attacks by the flanking divisions. Crossfire from Beaumont Hamel and Serre and determined counter-attacks held up the 4th Division. Parties of Lancashire Fusiliers, Seaforth Highlanders and troops from the 11th Brigade entered the Quadrilateral, where they were reinforced by a company of the Royal Irish Fusiliers during the night. Except at the Quadrilateral, the 4th Division ended the day back at its start line. No other gains were made and German counter-attacks overnight pushed the parties in the Quadrilateral back until only the Irish Fusiliers remained in the German front line, not having received an order to retreat early on 2 July. The Irish eventually withdrew at with their wounded and three prisoners; the 4th Division had In 2006, Grahame Kingston recorded in the division during July.


title: First day on the Somme

text: The 31st Division, a New Army division made up of Pals battalions, was to capture Serre and then turn north to form the northern defensive flank of the Fourth Army. The 31st Division attacked uphill from several copses and the two attacking brigades were engaged by the Germans with small-arms fire, expending against the attack. Small groups of the Accrington Pals and the Sheffield City Battalion managed to cross no man's land and reach Serre and a party advanced to Pendant Copse, before being cut off and killed or captured. Reserve Infantry Regiment 121 was confronted by the British attack before all the troops had emerged from their dugouts. More than three infantry sections were blown up in the mine explosion at Hawthorn Redoubt, the rest of the garrison being trapped until the end of the attack. A counter-attack towards the redoubt by two platoons gradually bombed the British back; after an hour only the troops in the remained and it was re-captured during the night. Reserve Infantry Regiment 119 suffered Reserve Infantry Regiment 121 Infantry Regiment 169 the 31st Division suffered


title: First day on the Somme

text: The Third Army (General Edmund Allenby), was to mount a diversion north of the Fourth Army area, with VII Corps. At the Gommecourt Salient, the German trenches curved around a château and its parkland and a gap of separated the Gommecourt diversion from the northern edge of the main attack. Preparations for a pincer movement to catch the garrison in a pocket, were made as obvious as possible to attract German attention. The 56th (1/1st London) Division had prepared jumping-off trenches in no man's land and when the attack commenced at swift progress was made. The first three German trenches were captured and a party pushed on towards the rendezvous with the 46th (North Midland) Division. A German barrage descended on no man's land, which made it impossible for reinforcements to move forward or for a trench to be dug as a defensive flank to the south and the survivors were forced to withdraw after dark. The 46th (North Midland) Division attack found that the German wire was uncut and the ground littered with unexploded mortar bombs. A smoke screen intended to mask the infantry obscured their view and left the Germans with observation over the attack. The ground was particularly wet and muddy and few troops reached the German trenches; the remaining British troops overran the front line, where German troops were able to emerge from shelters not mopped-up by the supporting battalions pinned down in no man's land by the German barrage and engage the British troops from behind.


title: First day on the Somme

text: The British bombardment cut much of the wire at Gommecourt and demolished many trenches, particularly in the area of Infantry Regiment 170 opposite the 56th (1/1st London) Division. The smoke screen obstructed the beginning of the attack and the damage caused by the bombardment blocked many dugout entrances; a counter-attack was swiftly mounted from Redoubt (the Maze), which was not under attack. The counter-attack failed to stop the 56th (1/1st London) Division reaching the third line of trenches, before a converging attack by Infantry Regiment 170 and Reserve Infantry began. The British had consolidated and the counter-attack made little progress, until co-ordinated bombing attacks in the afternoon gradually recovered the position. Opposite the 46th (North Midland) Division, Reserve Infantry took post in time, engaged the attackers while they were crossing no man's land but failed to stop the loss of the front trench until a counter-attack from the third trench "annihilated" the leading British troops; the German regiments suffered The 46th (North Midland) Division suffered which was the lowest divisional loss on 1 July. The commander, Major-General Montagu-Stuart-Wortley, was dismissed for the failure. The 56th (1/1st London) Division suffered