The Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme

The Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme is a war memorial to 72,337 missing British and South African servicemen who died in the Battles of the Somme between 1915 and 1918. Towering over 45 m in height, it dominates the landscape for miles around. The memorial was built between 1928 and 1932 and was inaugurated by the Prince of Wales in 1932. Designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, it is described as the greatest executed British work of monumental architecture of the twentieth century.

The memorial was built approximately 200 m to the south-east of the former Thiepval Château. It features 16 brick piers faced with Portland stone and a main arch aligned east to west. Lutyens designed a complex form of memorial arch comprising interlocking arches of four sizes. This geometry allows the names of 72,246 officers and men to be displayed in a compact form rather than the longer, lower, and linear form used on other memorials to the missing.

Over the years since its inauguration, bodies have been discovered on the former battlefield and are sometimes identified. To protect the integrity of the memorial as one solely for those who are missing or unidentified, it was decided that if a body were found and identified, the inscription of their name would be removed from the memorial by filling in the inscription with cement. For those who are found and identified, they are given a funeral with full military honours at a cemetery close to the location at which they were discovered.

The memorial stands on foundations 19 ft thick, required because of extensive wartime tunnelling beneath the structure. On the upper edges of the side archways, the phrase "The Missing / of the Somme" is carved. Included on the memorial are sixteen stone laurel wreaths inscribed with the names of sub-battles that made up the Battle of the Somme, such as Ancre Heights, High Wood, Delville Wood, and Pozières.

A visitors' centre opened at the site in 2004. The memorial remains a primary site for commemoration of the British and South African men who have no known grave in the Somme sector of France.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons