The Unquiet Spirits of the Somme

10/26/2024

by M.P. Pellicer | Stranger Than Fiction Stories
The Somme Offensive was one of the biggest, bloodiest battles of the First World War. It's little wonder then that ghosts have been reported on the haunted Somme battlefield.

The spectral figure bore an uncanny likeliness to Lord Kitchener, whose famous face adorned all of those recruitment posters. But the officer was already dead.

The First World War, also known as World War I, lasted from 1914 to 1918. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand by Gavrilo Princip on June 28, 1914 along with rivalries and nationalism contributed to the war.

The Somme Offensive was fought between July 1 to November 13, 1916 on both sides of the upper reaches of the River Somme in France. In the first day 68,000 lives were lost, making it a very bloody battle. In the aftermath the Somme was seen as a senseless slaughter of men. Three million men fought, and more than one million were killed or wounded.

With so much loss of life, it is little wonder that many of those who died there do not lie quietly in their graves.

On November 5, 1916 the whole area around Albert, in Picardie, France thundered with artillery and the sound of gunfire. The British 2nd Battalion of the Suffolk Regiment were being fired upon by a small German force who intended to overrun the trenches they occupied.

Kitchener in full dress uniform c. July, 1910

Captain W. E. Newcome sent an official report where he described an event he had personally witnessed. He described a "brilliant, white light" rise from the muddied ground between the armies. The light lengthened and filled out into the figure of a British officer, which soon became recognizable as Lord Kitchener. His face was well known since he was pictured on the recruitment posters. The regiment was one of Kitchener's own.

It wasn't just a strange place to see Lord Kitchener, it was the fact that he was dead. He had died five months before while traveling on the HMS Hampshire en-route to Russia to attend negotiations with Tsar Nicholas II. The ship hit a German mine 1.5 miles west of Orkney, Scotland and sank within 20 minutes. He was one of 737 lives lost that day, and his body was never recovered.

No Man's Land was lit up by flares, and the figure of Lord Kitchener was seen to walk parallel to the trenches. Then he turned to face the Germans, and their firing stopped as the walked over a thousand yards looking first this way, then that.

Then shells started to drop on No Man's Land in defense of the British troops. In the chaos the specter of Lord Kitchener was lost.

Another story that appeared in Pearson's Magazine, August, 1919, pp. 190-1., described the following:

Mr. William M. Speight, who had lost a brother officer, and his best friend, in the Ypres salient in December, 1915, seeing this officer come to his dug-out the same night. The next evening Mr. Speight invited another officer to come to the dugout in order to confirm him should the vision reappear. The dead officer came once more and, after pointing to a spot on the floor of the dug-out, vanished. A hole was dug at the indicated spot, and at a depth of three feet there was discovered a narrow tunnel excavated by the Germans, with fuses and mines timed to explode thirteen hours later. By the discovery of this mine the lives of a number of men were saved.

The Destroyed Wood of Thiepval, France

At Thiepval a memorial with 73,367 names of missing British soldiers who had no known graves was raised. Their bodies were never recovered from the surrounding countryside.

Present day identical, white headstones populate a rural landscape, which disguise what happened to the village of Thiepval and the carnage that occurred there in September, 1916.

A year later William Orpen and Henry Joffroy were sent separately to produce artwork based on the scenes from the Western Front.

In November, 1917 Orpen came to Thiepval Wood. The battles had stopped but skeletons dressed in ragged uniforms littered the ground. Despite a strange sense he was not alone he placed his canvas and easel, and painted for two or three hours. Even though the sun was shining he felt overwhelmed by feelings of extreme fear, so he took a seat on a blasted trunk of a tree. Without any warning something unseen rushed at him, and he was flung backward. As quickly as the entity made its presence known, it disappeared.

He struggled to his feet, and found his unfinished painting was destroyed. The canvas had been smashed upon the skull of a soldier. He warred whether to keep painting or leave. He decided to stay, and though the feeling of dread continued he was not interrupted again.

The Battle of the Somme c.1916

Not long after this event he was in conversation with fellow painter Henry Joffroy. Orpen didn't describe his ghostly experience, but did mention that one of the British skulls had an unusual cleft in the jawbone.

Joffroy asked him if he could take him to the wood, so that he might make a study of Thiepval Wood. Orpen dropped him off, and returned a few hours later with lunch. He was astounded to find Joffroy lying on the ground away from his easel. Later Joffroy said the smell made him feel ill, and there was a gleaming eye in the skull's socket.

Orpen didn't know what to make of his story, since there was no odor of death, and all the skeletons were only bleached bone.

The artists' experiences turned out were not unheard of, as others who had visited areas around the Somme Battlefield had similar encounters.

Deville Wood in Longueval, France was the scene of intense fighting in 1916 between British and German soldiers. Heavy casualties were suffered by both sides.

Visitors to Deville hear whispers, disembodied cries, and see shadows as well as apparitions of civilians and soldiers. Many believe the suffering experienced by the soldiers has imprinted itself in the land.

The Mémorial Sud-Africain De Longueval, located within Delville Wood, serves as a tribute to the South African soldiers who fought and died there.

Once a writer walking through the Nairne Street trench felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up, and a male voice whispered into his right ear: "We're still here."

Red Dragon Memorial in Mametz Wood, France

A very haunted spot is the Mametz Wood, which is avoided even by the locals who grew up in the area. They have heard bugle calls, and the sound of battle.

There is a statue of the Ddraig Goch (Red Dragon) holding a piece of broken barbed wire; a memorial to 4,000 soldiers of the Welsh Division who were almost wiped out in July, 1916. Not only was there fierce machine gunfire, but hand-to-hand combat. The regiment had recently been created, and for many of them this was their first taste of war.

People walking from Flatiron Cemetery up to the dragon monument report feelings of being watched by many eyes, which makes them very uneasy. The Lehr-Infanterie-Regiment also suffered high losses, and could not be deployed again until September, 1916.

Another area haunted by phantoms is The Danger Tree. On July 1, 1916 a whole male generation of Newfoundland and Labrador were wiped out. The Newfoundland Regiment were sent over the top along with the British Essex soldiers of the 29th British Division, on an order that meant almost certain death. The Germans shot at them as they crawled through a gap in the barbed wire. There was no cover for them, and they had to cross 750 yards as machine guns opened up on them. In the morning only 68 of 810 were alive.

Going Over The Top on the First Day of the Somme

Those visiting the area describe a sensation of dread and deep sadness, this or a desperation to get away from the place.

Sergeant George Thomas Hunter with the Tenth Corps Australian Expeditionary Force was wounded in July, 1916. He was flown to Peterborough in England where he died on July 31, 1916. He was buried in Broadway Cemetery. He was born in Durham, left to Australia in 1900 and in 1914 worked in the mines in Broken Hill NSW, before he joined the military.

The First World War infirmary building where he was nursed has changed, and is now the Peterborough Museum. Along the corridors and a specific staircase the ghost of Sgt. Hunter has been spotted. After hours, docents hear footsteps pacing in empty rooms above their head. When they go to investigate, there is no living person there. Visitors to the museum describe feeling an icy hand grab their shoulder from an invisible presence.

This is a story experienced by someone who visited the battlefields of the Somme:

I went to the battlefields of the First World War on a school trip. We stayed in a youth hostel in Belgium close to the French border. I was in a room with some of my closest friends. The first night we arrived at the hostel it was quite late and we went to bed pretty early. I remember feeling really cold in the room but everyone else said they were warm. But we all got to bed and went to sleep pretty easily. I woke up in the night at about three o clock in the morning. I could hear the sound of a battle all around me. I remember hearing gun shots and explosions and cannon-like booms. At first I thought that the TV was on but there was no way it could be that loud. I was really scared and I could pick out screams and crying amongst the artillery fire. Then they just stopped suddenly. I hope it was my own imagination.

The next day we traveled to Ypres. I had a great Uncle to find in Ypres Resovoir Cemetery. He was a member of the Kings royal rifle corps and died in the third battle of Ypres apparently. Well I found him. I started to cry as I stood in front of the grave. All I had was a measley poppy to give him and I felt bad after all he'd done for his country and family. Then I felt a warming presence around me that comforted me. It calmed me down and stopped me from crying. It made me feel contented and warm. The only way I can describe it is that it felt familiar.

I had to move on pretty fast because everyone else was waiting on the bus for me. We moved on to the more famous sites like the Menin Gate and Pashendale. But I felt the presence following me. From one site to the next I felt like it was there near me. One of my friends commented that I looked a bit distracted and kept looking behind me all the time. The presence was still there when I went to sleep the second night at the hostel.
Nothing happened that night. I didn't hear the noise, but when I woke up I thought I saw an outline of a person by one of my friends' beds. The next day when we were all awake I asked my friends if any of them had gotten up in the night and they all said no. They asked me what was up but I couldn't tell them because they'd think I was weird. But I had a good friend in another dorm room who I would tell, he believes in the paranormal like me and is the only one I can talk to about this. But he is a male friend and I wasn't allowed in his room at that time.

I managed to grab a seat next to him on the bus going to the Canadian trenches. I told him what had happened to me since I arrived at the Somme. I could still feel the presence around me and I told him this as well. We all arrived at the site and had a look around.

The trench system is not what it used to be but you can still stand in it and have your head covered. I didn't like going through there because I felt uncomfortable. It had been raining for the past couple of days and the trench was really muddy and wet. It was drizzling slightly when we were at the Canadian trenches. I hung at the back of the group with my friend and he took pictures of everyone. Later on when the photos were developed there are lots of white spots around all of us. But my friend decided he wanted a photo of me and the rest of the group had gone off to explore. But behind my friend appeared a figure of a male soldier. It was fuzzy at first but came into focus as he got closer. I was really terrified and I looked it too, and my friend noticed it. He looked behind him and he saw the man too. I saw him fully then, and I saw that nearly all of his right arm had been blown apart. This frightened me so much I legged it away from there and my friend followed me.

My friend had seen the man too so I wasn't going insane. I am still petrified whenever I think of the man. I didn't sleep at all that night at the hostel. I still felt the presence but it felt a bit distant that night. The next day our last visit was to the old English front line. Nothing happened there. But we started the journey home after that. When I got on the ferry the presence seemed to disappear and I have never felt the same presence at home.