The memorial to the 7th Battalion, Yorkshire Regiment is located in Fricourt British Cemetery.  The memorial remembers those of the 7th Battalion, Alexandra Princess of Wales Own Yorkshire Regiment who fell in the Fricourt area on 1 July 1916.

Serre Road No.1 Cemetery is a very large Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery situated on the No Man’s Land over which the Leeds and Bradford Pals attacked the village of Serre.

Luke Copse Cemetery is situated on the position of the British front line on 1 July 1916.

Sheffield Memorial Park is a small enclosure on a slope up which the British troops had to fight their way against determined German opposition.

The 12th Battalion York and Lancaster Regiment, Sheffield City Battalion Memorial to the Pals is in Serre.

The attack on Serre was a disaster.  There were 3,599 casualties, of which a large proportion had been killed.  The 31st Division and its Pals Battalions were decimated.

Serre was one of a number of front line villages in the Somme sector that had been heavily fortified by the Germans ever since they had taken up their positions in the area in late September 1914.

The Battle of the Somme was one of the first major actions of the First World War in which Kitchener’s New Army and the famous Pal Battalions were involved to any degree.

Many of the actions of the Battle of the Somme are associated with particular groups of soldiers.  Serre is a good example of this being associated with the Northern ‘Pals’ Battalions.

The Battle of the Somme was fought principally by the soldiers of Lord Kitchener’s ‘New Army’. 

These were just ordinary men from all walks of life united by their resolve to put the Germans in their place.  They were almost half a million strong, entirely volunteers, and hardly any of them had been in uniform for more than 23 months.  At best they were half trained.