Item 01: James William Dains diary, 21 November 1916-4 June 1917 - Page 102

[Page 102]

horses. We rode through Albert & up over the old British lines where the troops jumped over in the Somme offensive of 1916. The Bosch trenches were a couple of hundred yds. distant at the time & had a fine commanding view of the country right to Albert. We traversed the ground which is marked here & there with the small white cross of "A British Soldier", then a small cemetry & on through tangles of battered barbed wire till we came to a huge mine crater. This mine was laid by the Germans & was fired when the troops attacked. The crater is quite 90 feet deep & 150 feet in diameter. It makes one almost dizzy to look down into its depth. Away at the bottom is a plot squared off with a cross on it marking the spot where men have been buried. Close to this place is the spot where the East Surreys went over kicking their footballs.