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- very detailed diorama of a soldier in the trenches
writing a letter home
- copies of posters from that period
SOUNDTRACK
- commentary
on recruitment for WW1, the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry
and the effect of the Battle of the Somme itself |
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You enter the ‘Battle of the Somme’ through
a twisting corridor, surrounded by sandbags and in subdued
lighting. This sets the scene for the very effective diorama that
is the main display item.
The horrors of that battle are well documented
and we cannot hope here to realistically re-create the conditions
that the troops (on both sides) had to endure. This diorama though
may give some indication as to what it might have been like.
The setting for this display is a bunker in
which a soldier of the DCLI (Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry)
is writing a last letter home before going ‘over the top’.
With effective lighting and sound effects the commentary explains
how the DCLI expanded from 2 to 15 battalions during WW1 and why
20,000 British and British Empire troops were killed on 1st
July 1916.
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