On November 1st 1916, at Harcourt sector on the Somme, 900 men of the Broughtonthwaite Mates vanished in what became known as the Harcourt Event.
The Harcourt Crater, the biggest crater on the Western Front, is a lasting memorial to their fate, a fate film footage, found by a French farmer in 1926, would have us believe had them fighting for their survival on an alien world.
Today in Broughtonthwaite, as for the past 95 years, wreaths were laid at the foot of the war memorial before St Chads at 7.30am, in memory of those who vanished on this day, at that time, in 1916.
The Heroes of Harcourt. We will remember them. |