More than a hundred and twenty-six thousand men of the British and Commonwealth forces were killed on these two sectors and never found. Two memorials carry their names, and for most British families looking for somebody, one of them is where the search ends.
They are not interchangeable. The Menin Gate is in the middle of a Belgian market town and the names on it are men lost in the Salient before mid-August 1917. Thiepval stands alone on a ridge above the Ancre and its names are the Somme. Which one you are going to depends entirely on where he died, and that is the first thing to find out.
54,577 names, and a bugle call under the arch every evening at eight. What the Last Post ceremony is actually like, and how to find a name.
Lutyens’ arch above the Ancre, carrying 72,311 names of men lost on the Somme with no known grave. What you see, and how to find a name.
The itineraries go a good deal further than these two — cemeteries, craters, preserved trenches, museums, and the places that are only a field until somebody tells you what happened in it. Those are written up stop by stop in the packs rather than here, with the day each one falls on and everything you need to drive between them. See the tours.
If the name you are looking for is on neither of these memorials, he may have a grave, and Peter will try to find it.
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