Beneath the earth of the Somme Battlefields

Piece of chalk taken from the Somme battlefield

Not far beneath the earth of the Somme Battlefields of France is a deep layer of soft white chalk. The soldiers of the First World War had to dig down into this to construct the trenches that they lived in and fought from in 1916. The walls of the trenches were blindingly white when freshly dug. A Royal Irish Rifleman found this piece of Somme chalk in March 1917. A soldier of the 8/9th Battalion Royal Irish Rifles, part of the 16th (Irish) Division when the Division was fighting near Ginchy and Guillemont, had carved it in the autumn of 1916.