The bells of St Nicolas will be ringing today at 5:00pm in commemoration of this sad anniversary #thedaysussexdied. St Nicolas Church, Pevensey, 30 June 2016
The Day that Susex Died
The Battle of the Boar’s Head lasted less than five hours, but the Southdowns Brigade lost 17 officers and 349 other ranks. Over 1,000 men were wounded or taken prisoner, and the 13th Battalion was all but wiped out. June 30th 1916 was subsequently known as “The Day Sussex Died”.
The Day that Sussex Died
The battlefields of the First World War are filled with tragedies and lost lives. This is the story of the worst moment in Sussex’s military history and the day its men died.
11th Battalion Southdowns – Image courtesy of Ian Barton
The sound of artillery at the outbreak of the Battle of the Somme could be clearly heard on the Sussex coast. The noise of the guns routinely drifted across the channel and could be heard as far in land as London on some days. The sounds of fighting were particularly loud on 1 July 1916 as men rose from trenches to face the single worst day in the history of the British Army. By sunset, 57,470 men had become casualties, of which 19,240 were dead.
Sussex’s worst day had, however, taken place 24 hours earlier
read full story: The Day that Sussex Died, the First World War, East Sussex
