THE Battle of the Somme had many bad days but perhaps none so bad for Furness – and especially Ulverston – as August 8 in 1916.

A century ago today Ulverston lost the lives of nine young men with close links to the town, with Millom, Dalton, Coniston and Barrow adding to a South Cumbrian death toll of 20.

The men all went into battle with the 1/4th Battalion of the King’s Own Royal Lancaster Regiment.

These volunteer territorials started the day confident of success.

They had trained for months and deserved better than the disaster which unfolded in front of them.

They were bombed, shelled and machine gunned by the enemy and even shelled by their own artillery with no means to halt what the modern era would call “friendly fire”.

The men faced uncut barbed wire and could make little progress before digging in just 50 yards forward of their front line trench.

An attempt to link up with troops advancing alongside them was wrecked as shells for mortars failed to get to where they were needed.

The battalion’s initial count at the end of the day was 53 dead, with another 211 wounded or missing.

August 7 had seen the Furness troops in a human traffic jam heading towards Trones Wood and Guillemont.

It took from 8.15pm to 1am to get everyone into position through the congestion.

The first attacking waves crept out into no-man’s land under the cover of darkness at 3.45am.

The secret was out by 4.15am and these vulnerable men were subjected to a German artillery barrage.

When the whistles sounded for the full attack at 4.30am the King’s Own was met by a “terrific bomb fire”

The battalion’s war diary noted: “This was unexpected and caused very heavy casualties.

“Enemy also opened a very heavy machine gun fire. The attack was arrested.”

The survivors got out their entrenching tools and started digging for their lives.

The diary noted: “Very heavy fire and our own artillery fired short.”

A review of the abortive advance made a couple of days later noted that the enemy’s rapid and accurate response to the attack was “absolutely unexpected.”

The reinforcing second line of advancing troops had been caught in the open by machine gun and rifle fire.

Only one telephone line was left uncut in the chaos of shelling, leaving runners as the only method of communication.

This proved crucial when the British artillery fell short and started killed and injuring men of the King’s Own.

The report noted: “It was with the greatest difficulty that the artillery were informed of this, during which time the battalion had suffered casualties from this fire.”

To make matters worse, the stoke’s mortars needed for get the advance moving towards Guillemont had arrived with no shells.

The report said: “There was a great deal of delay in bringing up Stoke’s mortar ammunition.”

As darkness fell, what remained of the battalion collected its wounded and did what they could to repair their original front line trenches before being relieved by the King’s Liverpool Regiment.

The Germans at Guillemont village, about six miles east of Ulverston’s twin town of Albert, held out until September 3.