This past Sunday the Moths’ Turbi Hills Shellhole in Louis Trichardt commemorated one of the most intense and costly battles in terms of human lives ever known to mankind, the Battle of the Somme.

Between 1 July and 18 November 1916, more than one million men were wounded or killed on the banks of the river Somme in France. Among these soldiers were more than 2 400 South Africans that included members of the African Native Labour Corps, as well as units comprised of Coloured and Indian servicemen and also men and women who served in uniform. They fought with the Allied Forces for control over a small piece of land in the northeast of France, called Delville Wood.

During Sunday’s special remembrance service, local historian Mr Charles Leach gave a stirring address to attendees of the demonic conditions and indescribable horrors that took place over the four and a half days at the Battle of the Somme.

“To our generation, Delville Wood is just a little spot that we hear about once a year, but it was a battle that was listed as one of seven that shaped South Africa,” said Leach.

The battle of the Somme was intended to be a decisive breakthrough for the Allied Forces against the German Army, but it did not turn out that way. It is ever so often described, by Leach himself, as an example of supreme sacrifice and heroism. “For every one South African wounded, four others were killed,” said Leach.

There were 1 029 soldiers who never received the last honour – that of an individual grave. Rather, their blood soaked the battle field and, in the words of the poet C Louis Leipoldt, “watered the trees”. In remembering the fallen soldiers' ultimate sacrifice, Leach ended off with a word of caution.

“It is important to recognise the ineptitude of the military leaders of the past whose callous and ill-begotten decisions were responsible for those very unnecessary deaths. If we do not know and do not remember our past, we will surely fail to recognise and to react to those same human tendencies and errors that will again one day result in untold human destruction and misery, because history has an uncanny way of repeating itself.”

Readers can log on to www.zoutpansberger.co.za to view a short video clip of the service, and to listen to Ed Christie’s performance of Amazing Grace on the bagpipes.