Wales at the Somme: Gareth Thomas and the Battle of Mametz Wood

Gareth Thomas - Alfie - rugby legend.

He was one of the most capped Welsh internationals of all time.

Two of Gareth's great uncles fought in the First World War

and, 100 years on, he and his family are retracing

their ancestors' journey to the Somme.

Gareth will uncover the tragic story of what ultimately happened to these

two young brothers from Pontycymer.

Standing here now, this could be the place where he took his last breath.

SHE SOBS

We also find out what life was like for the ordinary soldier.

Have you ever marched in your life?

Er...no.

And he'll get his hands dirty,

digging at an archaeological site

where Welsh soldiers were cut down in their thousands.

Mametz Wood.

We'll find new evidence to explain

why the attack claimed so many lives.

Oh, my God, it's huge.

-It's pretty massive, actually.

-Yes!

Massive. Massive!

And using new laser mapping technology,

we'll uncover secrets below the ground.

A-ha! What on earth is this?

Secrets that could explode a devastating accusation

that the Welsh soldiers who fought at Mametz Wood

showed a lack of determination.

CROWS CALL

Early morning, and Welsh soldiers are approaching enemy lines.

Their mission, to capture a strategically critical wood

lying on the high ground above the Somme.

They've been ordered to take it at any cost.

As they approach no-man's land, they have no idea what to expect.

# Abide with me

# Fast falls the eventide

# The darkness deepens

# Lord, with me abide... #

But the fighting here will prove vicious and bloody.

By the end of the battle,

over 4,500 Welsh soldiers will have been killed or injured.

Despite these huge sacrifices, accusations of indiscipline

and a lack of resolve hung over the Battle Of Mametz Wood.

Insinuations that Welsh forces could have fought harder and more bravely.

Memories of this linger on,

and still today it remains a sore and sensitive spot

in the nation's history.

# In life, in death, O Lord

# Abide with me. #

Gareth Thomas has a personal stake in the story of Mametz

and in Wales' World War I.

Two of his great uncles fought and died on the Somme.

I want to learn more about my uncle cos I feel it's a duty.

I feel anybody who has a history and a connection with people

who gave their lives for the way we live our lives now,

it's only right they should find out what these people went through

for us to be able to live the way we are now.

I'm extremely proud of the fact they went to battle

and gave their lives for our country.

So for me, I don't want them to be forgotten ever

and I feel it's a really important part of who I am

to be able to find out who they are.

Gareth will be retracing his uncles' journey to France,

trying to find out how and where they died.

He is beginning at his mother Vonnie's house in Bridgend.

-Oh, hiya, love.

-Hello.

-OK?

-I'm all right.

-Waiting for my breakfast.

-All right, OK, what do you want?

Thank you very much. Same as always.

-Do you want tea first, then?

-Yes, please.

Gareth's dad, Barry,

has tried researching his uncles' First World War story,

but there's not much information online.

Right, so this is all we've got.

Two photographs.

Which one's which?

Er... This is Edward.

-OK.

-10th battalion, Royal Welch Fusiliers.

Died the 16th of the eighth, 1916.

What age is that that he died, then?

-He'd be 20.

-20.

-Mmm.

And that's his brother, William.

Died third of the seventh, 1916.

That would make him 24.

You look at them and they are so young.

But what they must've seen and went through in that short time...

Yeah.

..was awful. Awful, awful.

-Kind of ghostly, isn't it?

-Mmm.

-Yeah, it is, like hunting ghosts.

-Mmm.

-Like hunting ghosts.

With expert help, the family are hoping they'll find out more

in the days ahead.

While they make their preparations,

over in France, work is beginning on a major new archaeological dig

at Mametz Wood.

That stood out the minute we got it.

-Yeah, yeah.

-Shell hole.

In 1916,

this area would have been covered in trenches and bunkers

and all the material of war but since then it's all vanished.

The trenches were backfilled after the ceasefire

and they're now covered by a century of soil.

In terms of size, they range from an 18-pounder there...

Nobody's ever dug at Mametz Wood before,

so all sorts of traces of the battle could still lie hidden here.

The key thing as far as I'm concerned

is that if you discover anything

which you think is a piece of ammunition and you're not sure,

give me a call and I will come and deal with it.

The team are surveying Mametz from the air,

scanning the wood with the latest technology.

They'll use this information to steer them

to the most promising places to dig.

-What do you think? Somewhere round here, then.

-Yeah.

They're seeking out clues as to what really happened in this wood

100 years ago.

What they're hoping for is new evidence

to shut down allegations of lack of commitment

on the part of the Welsh troops once and for all.

Gareth will be exploring this controversy for himself.

But if he's confident of one thing,

it's that his great uncles and their comrades from the Garw Valley

were resilient men who had each other's backs.

'The one thing that Valley life has

'is the willingness to get your hands dirty,

'to be hard-working, to be committed.'

In 100 years, the landscape round here hasn't changed

and neither has the attitude and the way of the people,

the way they live their lives.

You know, there's such a feeling of community here,

such a lookout for each other that you think, going to war,

that's the one thing that you really need,

and the one thing maybe you couldn't train for.

Yet many of the 1,500 men from the valley who went off to fight

never made it back.

Before he leaves for France,

Gareth also wants to visit the family home

that William and Edward didn't live to see again.

I suppose my first thought of seeing this house is kind of...

It's a few emotions.

It's a bit of embarrassment at the fact that it's ten minutes away

from where I've lived all my life and never been here.

It's kind of, I suppose, one of excitement as well,

because this is where my journey starts,

my journey in following my great uncles who lived here.

But also, kind of, one of sadness,

cos it's where their journey started as well, and their journey...

to death, really.

FANFARE PLAYS

# Oh, oh, oh, it's a lovely war

# Who wouldn't be a soldier, eh?

# Oh, it's a shame to take the pay... #

Family pilgrimage over,

Gareth's ready to take the next steps

in finding out what happened to his great uncles.

By the time William and Edward Thomas arrived in France,

both sides were bogged down in gruelling trench warfare.

ARTILLERY FIRE

The battle of the Somme was a British and French attempt

to break the deadlock -

a big push intended to smash through German lines.

Mametz would soon become a key strategic objective

in this massive assault.

So, do you want to start, then? A pair of boots on each.

I think they should fit you.

Historian Andy Robertshaw

will be trying to unearth the wartime story

of Gareth's great uncles

but, first, he wants to give him and his dad a little taste

of what Welsh soldiers would have encountered in France.

Stick an arm out , it's going to be your right arm.

And the last item we are going to give each of you -

you can try a helmet on, OK?

The key attacking force of Mametz Wood was the 38th Welsh Division.

Lloyd George had pushed for its creation

to prove Wales was pulling its weight in the war effort.

But just like Gareth,

these men hadn't seen much in the way of combat.

So, you'll need a rifle, soldier.

And you're going to follow me

and we are going to go on a bit of a route march.

Come on.

-Come on!

-Come on! Slacker!

Right, gents, so what we're going to do now is a little bit of drill,

just a bit of light drill, a little bit of light practice

to see what you make of it,

and we shouldn't be more than a couple of hours.

Never volunteer, Baldrick!

GARETH CHUCKLES

A couple of hours...?

What are you doing, then?

I've got a wound.

BARRY LAUGHS

-I tell you what, see, innit? I wouldn't go to war with him.

-No.

-Straightaway, out the window - he's meant to be your pal, isn't he?

-Yeah.

He's let you down.

Right, under your gas mask, you've got a bayonet.

Find the bayonet, pull it out.

-Oh!

-Now, take it round, fix it.

You've got a ring in the top and it fits underneath.

No, there we go, let's do it.

OK, take it, it's going to go vertically downwards onto that.

It'll go on to make a nice click as it goes on.

-BARRY LAUGHS

-What are you laughing at?

Pardon, Sergeant Major!

Get out here!

You're relieved of duties!

BARRY AND VONNIE LAUGH

Go!

That's it, nice and easy, just swing.

-We're naturally in step.

-Oh, right. Oh, yeah.

-Our feet are going together at the same point, see?

-Oh, yeah.

God, it's sweaty.

The men of the Welsh Division would have worn the same uniform

in winter and in summer and may have marched up to 15 miles a day

as they made their way across France.

'I think the more you're in it, the heavier it gets,'

because the more you start to sweat, and the more uncomfortable it gets,

so the longer you are in it, the worse it becomes.

You know, if they have been marching in this all day,

and not just maybe for one day, but two days, three days,

four days consecutively,

then going into battle,

you know, they're going to be cold, wet.

Even if it's hot, you know,

if the rain has come, then they're going to have to dry.

So they basically lived in this outfit

and it's not a very comfortable outfit.

It has given Gareth a tiny glimpse

into the realities of World War I soldiering

that his great uncles would have experienced.

He's now hoping to learn more about life on the front line

from digging the very spot where the fighting happened.

Just as you walk, you can see the trenches snaking through

-and these shell craters that still survive.

-Yeah.

-Actually, it's quite eerie to walk on.

-It is.

Lead archaeologist Richard Osgood

is taking Gareth to the trenches he started working on.

Since this was an attack on a heavily defended German position,

there are no Welsh-dug trenches in the wood,

so it's these German remains

that'll best tell the story of the battle.

This is one of the German trenches.

We think this is strip trench right on the edge of the wood block.

And are they going to dig as far down as the trench would have gone?

Yeah, absolutely.

You can imagine you have to have head cover

to make sure you're given that proper covering.

-More deep for you than for me, let's say.

-OK!

But, yeah, they've got a bit further to go.

-So have you found anything, then?

-Yes, we have, actually.

In this little tray - this is our finds tray -

what we do have is... you see this?

This is a German boot that's been found just on the surface.

-Can I pick them up, yeah?

-Of course you can, yeah.

You know, I'm doing my best here to stand here still,

cos I'm holding them, and it's like chills.

It's incredible, isn't it?

-You know, it's not like shrapnel...

-No, no.

..something that was just cast away, this was actually a part of...

It puts a human on it.

Yeah, it puts the human element...

-..into war, really.

-It certainly does.

-Yeah.

Especially with boots, cos of the importance of boots.

Well, that's the thing, isn't it, you don't lose the boots, do you?

-No.

-They have to be taken off you.

-Yeah.

Oi...

The Germans defending this wood were battle-hardened elite troops.

In comparison, the Welsh Division troops on the attack were novices,

untested in battle.

But Mametz Wood had to be taken.

As a strategic high point and defensive obstacle,

it was blocking the way for the wider advance on the Somme.

So, on the morning of July the 7th,

the Welsh Division prepared for their first full-scale assault,

attacking northwards across a wide no-man's land

straight towards German machineguns.

You would have been in the dead ground, safe,

someone would have said,

"All right, lads, we're going to go over the top in a minute."

All right? Someone will blow a whistle, yeah?

And that whistle means you're going to go forward -

you are going to stand up and you're going to walk forward,

or possibly run if you can do,

to get forward, to get that way, knowing that, as you come up,

you're waiting for that first crackle of gunfire,

the first machinegun to open up, the first shell to burst.

But the other thing for these guys is, they're going into the unknown.

You're in that dead ground over there - you can't see that.

All you can see is the rise in front of you

and you're going to come up over that rise

-and as you come over that rise...

-Think what you're going to see.

-..that's your view.

What we're looking at now is the view they get.

-You're seeing it for the first time.

-Think about what the German view is.

-You're down there. Look at that skyline.

-Yeah.

-All of a sudden, it's littered with men.

-Pick them off.

-Yeah.

It's a turkey shoot.

In total, the Welsh Division attacked three times that day.

But each time the German machineguns mowed them down...

..littering these fields with corpses.

So many died

that this area became known to Welsh troops as Death Valley.

So now, one day, is there an account of the wounded or dead?

Casualties-wise, the two battalions here,

it's about 500-600 casualties between the two battalions.

-In one day.

-In that one day.

The attempt to capture Mametz Wood had been a total disaster.

Obviously, if the first plan failed,

what's the consequences to who set the first plan?

Well, that's the problem.

One of the things that follows on from this is,

-you know, you try to look for scapegoats.

-Mmm.

But one of the things that really impacts

is that there's an accusation made

that the men here had a lack of determination, a lack of resolve.

-Whoa!

-Yeah!

In effect, they're calling them cowards.

They're saying that these guys

are just not up to the job and they didn't press hard enough.

You are... No way, come on!

-Yeah, sorry.

-By who?

Who would have the balls to say that?

A lack of determination is one of the words used by General Haig.

He was in charge?

The commander-in-chief of the Army.

-"A lack of resolve to reach the objective achieved."

-Oh, my word!

-And that's...

-And that's against the Welsh Regiment?

It's levelled at these guys

-and these are the guys that have taken the casualties.

-Yeah.

-In their first battle.

-Oh, my word.

-In their first battle.

That's pheno... What an insulting thing to say.

Yeah.

-See, if I could flash back now, I'd stand here, right?

-Yeah.

I'd stand here and I'd go as loud as I could,

"Oi!

"Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough!"

See, so when he's all the way back here

calling me a coward for being here,

come and walk a little step in my shoes.

-Yeah.

-Yeah, like, stand here.

-Yeah.

-He never even got this far.

I'm standing here now, right -

I bet every single man that stood here on that day,

the first thing what they had to face, taking an inch after inch,

and only taking an inch after they'd lost a life.

-Then they could take another inch.

-Yes, yeah.

Don't tell me that somebody stood here and wasn't brave.

They didn't stand here and they were cowards

cos, to get this far, you have to be brave.

-Cos if you weren't brave, you'd have gone that way.

-Absolutely.

These guys here did the absolute best that they could do on the day.

-Yes.

-They worked to the best of their ability.

-Yes.

It wasn't their fault that they didn't get there.

-No unit would have been able to do this.

-Yeah.

No unit.

On July the 7th 1916, the Battle of Mametz Wood had only just begun.

A century later,

a steady stream of Welsh visitors still come to pay their respects.

This way, this was a... They lost their men.

-It's Gareth Thomas!

-Hiya, byt! How you doing?

THEY CHEER AND APPLAUD

-It's a real Welshman!

-How lovely!

LAUGHTER

Was you singing? We heard you singing, that's why we came down.

-LAUGHTER

-Seriously. We were up in the fields, filming.

-Did you hear us?

-Did you hear us singing?

Well, we heard something!

LAUGHTER

The dragon memorial commemorates the men

who fought and died on this spot.

Where are you all from? Obviously Wales, but where in Wales?

South? North? Everywhere?

-All right.

-From Llandeilo.

-Oh, nice.

Haverfordwest, we've got.

So from over there we heard you singing.

-What was you all singing?

-We were singing Jesu, Lover Of My Soul.

Well, you were that good, I'd love to hear it again.

-OK. Right!

-LAUGHTER

I'll join in with you. With my terrible voice.

Come here. Where am I going to go? Come on.

Cos I don't know the tune or anything. Stay with me.

-Come on, then.

-One, two...

-ALL:

-# Jesu, lover of my soul

# Let me to thy bosom fly

# Guide me, O my Saviour, hide

# Till the storm of life is past

# Safe into the haven guide

# O receive my soul at last. #

I'm so glad I was singing next to the professional singer!

LAUGHTER

He was drowning out my terrible voice brilliantly.

Thank you, byt.

Back at the dig, the archaeologists are now finding traces

of German trenches in the wood.

The Welsh soldiers attacking would have aimed

to capture these defences as they advanced.

Hello, byt. All right?

You OK?

Yeah, good, good. You coming in?

Yeah. Can I come in anywhere?

-Can I step on anything?

-Yeah.

-I don't want to ruin your dig.

Gareth wants to do his part in helping the team uncover the story.

So which part are you digging?

At the minute, we're trying to do this front-line trench.

-Right.

-You can see down here we've just exposed some comms wire -

-communication wire.

-Right, OK.

This is what they would have used for communications

on the frontline trench.

-So can I try and find something?

-Yeah, of course you can.

Grab a trowel.

I've never really been gentle with stuff, so what do you do?

-Just kind of...

-You'll have to be now.

What we're trying to do is just trace it.

Right, so just kind of scraping it, I suppose?

-Yeah, pretty much.

-There's a fair bit of ordnance in here.

-We found a grenade and stuff yesterday, as well.

-Oh, really?

-Whoa.

-There's quite a bit of small arms coming out.

You could have told me that before I jumped in here, byt!

Right, OK.

Matt Smith and another archaeologists on the team

are also former soldiers themselves.

They're here as part of an MOD project

called Operation Nightingale.

It tries to help injured or traumatised soldiers

through archaeology.

Matt, originally from Cwmbran,

was in the Royal Signals, and served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Dave Hart was severely injured by a suicide bomber

who drove into his Land Rover in Kabul.

And Ant Cook served as an infantry soldier with the Royal Welsh

in Afghanistan's Helmand Province.

For me, the first time being in a trench and digging, it's kind of...

I don't know, it's kind of an eerie feeling.

You're in a trench where the Germans and the British

-would have fought against each other.

-Yeah.

-Trying to kill each other, ultimately.

-Yeah.

Maybe you could understand more than me but, for me,

I just find this very difficult to understand and comprehend.

And that's why I want to get my hands dirty,

being here to find things.

When you dig and you're actually getting dirty

and in the places where these people were,

you know, it becomes a lot more real.

Work's now finishing up for the day

and the team are packing away their tools and finds.

There's still time for a quick practice session

before dinner, though.

INDISTINCT CHATTER

Later that evening, around the campfire,

Gareth wants to know what these military men

make of accusations of a lack of determination.

Something that really kind of...

Kind of hurt when I was told about the nature,

that they were called cowards when they were sent over the first time

because they weren't attack-minded enough. Erm...

Nobody in this war could have been a coward.

-No.

-From any country around the world.

-Am I right in saying that?

-Yeah, definitely.

Definitely.

I find that quite shocking, as well.

I don't know how anyone could call someone a coward, you know,

that's here, and, you know...

standing in front of where the Germans were,

all that artillery going off.

And, you know, actually going over the top of the trench

and going forward, you know? I don't...

Being soldiers, can you even imagine...

..the chaos that happened here?

Honestly, no.

Not seeing what they've gone through and seeing the lay of the land,

seeing the...

ridiculous amount of shell craters there are up there,

erm... I don't think anybody can.

Yeah, we were here for no more than a few minutes, weren't we?

-And we were like, "We wouldn't want to attack that."

-No.

-At all!

The fact the Germans were up on high ground -

just would have been such a challenge to go up there,

with all that machinegun fire coming down.

Just unbelievable, the courage that they would have took to do that.

You know that there's high casualties

and you know your chance will be slim doing that.

-Yeah.

-It's just mad, like.

We've all lost friends and suffered personally

but to do that day after day for...

You know, some of these guys were fighting from 1914 to 1918.

That's just beyond comprehension, even for... You know...

-Even for...

-Yeah, despite that. I've only done it...

Yeah.

Next morning, Gareth is hoping to finally learn

about the fate of his great uncle Edward,

something he's wanted to know for many years.

So Andy's taking the Thomas family to a spot

outside the village of Aveluy, just down the road from Mametz.

Erm...

This has all been a bit mysterious.

I bet you're wondering why I've brought you here.

I bet you're thinking, "Why?"

-Yeah.

-OK. Er...

Well, we've been very lucky.

We've done some more research on William Thomas,

your uncle, your great uncle.

And we know quite a lot more about the circumstances of his death.

On the day of his death,

B and D Company of his regiment were sent to this village.

And their job was to repair the road that went from the village,

-from the rear area...

-Yeah...

-..up there.

And that's the British front line.

Fixing roads and infrastructure was a vital job in World War I -

as important as fighting on the front line.

Andy has found out that Gareth's uncle William was a Pioneer,

responsible for jobs just like this.

And the Pioneers were putting their lives on the line every day,

just like any other soldier.

This is what's called the War Diary,

and it says, "4am..." So he had an early start.

"..B and D companies get to Aveluy", which is where we are now.

And it then tells us that, on that day,

the Germans shell again and two men were killed.

It says, "Killed in action, number 17624, E Hopkins,

"and 17627, William Thomas."

It's just... It's just nice to know.

-Yeah.

-I just feel it's nice to know.

-BARRY:

-Some closure, anyway.

Yeah, it's nice. Yeah.

You know, standing here now, this could be the place where...

You know, this could be the place where he took his last breath.

And it was 100 years ago

and everything should say probably I should be so disconnected by it

but I don't. I feel really...

-Hmm.

-I really feel really connected to it.

Yeah, definitely.

We've always said, like, all right,

they were killed in the First World War in France.

Now, we can actually put a story to that.

Yeah. Because it's a life.

-It's a human life.

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

Just working away, and...

-VONNIE:

-Yeah. One of those things that happens.

You're all right. OK?

-SHE SOBS

-Take a moment.

-We know now, don't we? We know what our...

-Yeah.

And you'll know that we use poppies for remembrance.

-I bet you can't guess what the French use.

-Shit.

They use a blue cornflower.

And it's somewhere down this strip of road that he was killed

and this is a memorial.

And the people in the village haven't forgotten.

-VONNIE:

-I wondered when I seen them.

-Yeah.

-BARRY:

-I thought it was just a flower bed.

-No, it's not.

-A council thing.

-Well, I think it's probably the village.

-You know what I mean.

-Yeah, yeah.

It looks like a bit of planting but it's not.

It's a memory.

And, in fact, they know that we use the poppy

and they use the cornflower, and here they are, mixed.

But the only thing is that he obviously has a burial.

In fact, the local cemetery, which is just up the hill here -

there are 16 men who are unknown.

In other words, the bodies were found, they were buried,

but nobody knew actually who they were.

-BARRY:

-So he could be there?

-I think he could.

I'm not saying he is but he could be there.

-VONNIE:

-Yeah, look. The younger son, there.

-Yeah.

Incredibly, it turns out the dates on four of these unknown graves

match the date of great uncle William's death.

So one of them could be his burial place.

I'm really drawn to this.

I know it sounds silly.

But they're all the 3rd of July.

They all have the Dragon and they have this beautiful yellow rose.

What a great place now to be able to come.

Yes.

-This will always be a special little village, won't it?

-Yeah.

Yeah, it will now.

I feel we should be all maybe quite morbidly upset

but I really feel like it's something to be celebrated

because...

you know, we've narrowed this down now to actually finding

where he lays, near enough, and where he rests.

I think the final part, for me, is coming here and just sitting there

'and listening to the silence.'

And thinking, do you know what?

If you're going to rest anywhere and be in peace anywhere, then...

this, for me in my mind...

is a nice place to rest.

It's a nice, peaceful place to rest.

There are peaceful cemeteries like this one

scattered right across the Somme.

None of the dead were brought back home.

They all rest side-by-side here, where they fell.

And out of the 120,000 Welsh soldiers who fought in World War I,

around 40,000 lost their lives.

Given the scale of all this carnage,

it remains to be seen whether Gareth can track down

his other great uncle, Edward.

Back at the dig, the day's been heating up

and Gareth's keen to pull his weight.

Boys!

-What have we got?

-I think... Is it leather?

Oh, wow. Oh, my God.

-Yeah, there is.

-It's a really big piece.

Yeah, that looks like part of a webbing pouch.

-It's like an ammo pouch.

-Yeah.

-That's a big piece.

-That is.

-We need to get the...

-Yeah, it's pretty massive, actually.

Yes! Massive!

-THEY LAUGH

-Massive! Massive.

Good word.

That's brilliant. Look at that.

That's in great condition, as well.

-And, mate...

-Where did you find it?

Erm... Just kind of, like...

in the mud.

THEY LAUGH

There's a technical term there.

Yeah, we need Andy over here,

and he'll hopefully be able to identify that,

tell us where that comes from.

Hopefully, whether it's British or German.

Wow, what an awesome feeling.

When it comes to identifying World War I artefacts,

Andy's knowledge is second to none.

Andy, office!

It's the lower half, the bottom,

of a German ammunition pouch.

From either here or there on the body.

Yeah.

So that's German and that's a German ammunition pouch.

Can you say it with a little bit more enthusiasm?

-Cos it's the first thing I've found.

-LAUGHTER

It is a fantastic find.

I mean, in this soil, as well, it's an amazing find.

I think it might be the top flap, actually.

But that's what you've got.

So that would be the part that would have opened up.

You open it up and then take the ammunition out.

Close it up again and put that in your rifle.

-Yeah.

-That's what it is.

German, definitely.

-I think the words you're looking for are, "Amazing, well done."

-Yeah...

-Well, we haven't got anything like that. It IS amazing.

-Thank you!

Thank you. That's what we want.

It is. All we need now is a German helmet and I'm happy.

OK. OK. No problem.

No problem. What Andy wants, Andy gets.

For the trainee archaeologist, it's a great start.

And they're still seems to be more of the ammunition pouch

in Gareth's trench.

-Oh, yeah.

-You can see the edge along there.

-See it?

-Yeah. That's fantastic.

Oh, my God! It's huge.

You're, like, finding history.

So Gareth's personally found traces of the Germans who occupied

and, in some cases, fought and died in these trenches.

And he's now about to meet a descendant

of German troops who were posted to the Somme.

-Hello, Brigitte.

-Guten tag.

I'm Gareth.

Ich bin Brigitte aus Deutschland.

Lovely to meet you. Please sit down, please.

These are my great uncles who fought and died in this area.

And this one...

Brigitte Weber's two uncles were sent off to the war,

just like Gareth's own great uncles.

And just like the Thomases, Brigitte's family also lost a son.

Oh, he looks so young in this picture.

So this is a postcard written by him back to his parents.

Kind of, trying to explain how he's attempting to deal

with the grief of, only a week or two weeks prior to that,

losing his brother in the battle.

Ja.

Wow, so he fought near Mametz, which means that, potentially,

his regiment would have fought against one of the regiments

that my great uncles were in.

When you look at them there, lined up, they could almost be brothers.

Back at the dig site, there's been a momentous and poignant discovery.

A team has started to uncover human bones.

It's highly likely they are the remains of a soldier

who died here in 1916.

-Can you see where the break is?

-Yes. Oh, my goodness.

You've got the bone there, where the break's been,

and there's another bone and there's a joint there.

Look, it does go on, doesn't it?

-And it's going down, isn't it?

-Yeah, it is going down.

OK, so, erm...

You've got the ammunition pouch that Gareth found there.

No.

Gareth's one was removed yesterday.

-Oh, that's the second one.

-That's the second one.

-Oh, right.

-We just found that this morning.

Gareth's ammunition pouch that he found was adjacent to that one.

OK, well, you've got two, then.

-Two ammo pouches.

-And the arms... Well, the arm there,

-potentially like that, as if he's lying down?

-Slumped on a side?

-Yeah, possibly.

-OK, and that's the back of the trench?

-The back of the trench.

-But he's obviously orientated in this direction.

-Right.

-So...

So... Mmm. Oh...

Potentially, we've got the remains of a skeleton.

-Yeah.

-Possibly a soldier.

-Yeah.

They'll need to dig very carefully to find whatever else survives

of this fallen soldier.

It's painstaking work.

And the team want to treat his remains with the utmost respect.

For the next few hours, things move very slowly.

Oh, my word. Just think, 24 hours ago, I was down here.

HE CHUCKLES

-There's the brush.

-Oh, my God!

If you look to the left, just below where you pulled your pouch out...

-That's the rest of it?

-There's the other one.

And then, obviously, in the centre, you can see the two arm bones.

Oh... I don't know, it just brings everything back a bit, doesn't it?

-The horrors of it all.

-Mm-hmm.

There's something really haunting about it, as well.

It kind of doesn't really matter if he was a British soldier,

-a Welsh soldier, a German soldier.

-Irrelevant. Yeah.

Irrelevant.

This person has a story to tell, he has a family, I'm sure.

He has a history.

-And he doesn't deserve to be left...

-In the trench, like.

He doesn't deserve it, does he?

They'll do everything they can to recover any further remains

but, without ID papers, they can't hope to identify this individual.

Whatever happens at the end of the dig,

they'll carefully reinter his bones

in one of the cemeteries in the area.

There must be dozens more lost and forgotten soldiers

still scattered through this wood.

And the battle would claim even more lives

when the Welsh attacked for a second time.

Having looked at that first attack on the 7th of July,

-we've jumped three days.

-Yeah.

On the morning of the 10th of July,

the 38th Division is now going to launch its attack against the wood.

GUNFIRE

Nobody knew how many German soldiers still remained hidden in the wood,

or how well defended they were.

But the Welsh Division's new commander was determined

that, this time, they'd throw everything at the fight.

So there'd be no retreat, however much blood was spilt.

It's a tough fight. It's a horrid fight.

Remember, you're not...

You've been trained that you might get a bit of notice

of shooting at your opponents.

But in here, there could be somebody behind a tree.

People literally come round a tree and there's a German soldier.

It's the first person who pulls the trigger, who's the quickest,

that will survive.

GUNFIRE AND EXPLOSIONS

Having fought their way in,

Welsh troops were surprised at the scene of utter chaos

that greeted them.

GUNFIRE AND EXPLOSIONS

Their commanders had told them it should only take a couple of hours

to clear the whole wood.

You've got the added problems of artillery shells bursting in trees,

which is then going to send

thousands of splinters of wood flying around.

All of which is horrific

but you've got to start working your way through.

GUNFIRE AND EXPLOSIONS

It's absolute chaos in here.

GUNFIRE AND EXPLOSIONS

It almost feels like it doesn't end.

Yesterday, when we were up there, the horror of what they had to face

to come into... was almost unbelievable.

Then you think, OK, you get to the woods,

maybe have a sense of, OK, we're in a safer zone for a bit.

But all of a sudden,

-the woods brings as much danger as no-man's land.

-Yeah.

You've got people like Llewelyn Wyn Griffiths, who's a staff officer.

He's actually come into the wood during the carnage

and he talks about seeing a huge Prussian soldier on his knees.

And in front of him is a little, short Welshman

and they're both bayoneting each other at the same time.

And they're kneeling, leaning against each other,

with the bayonets impaled.

This level of extreme violence and brutal hand-to-hand combat

was captured in the most famous image of the battle -

a painting called The Welsh At Mametz Wood by Christopher Williams.

It's a gory depiction of the full horror

of what happened to the Welsh Division

as they moved into the wood.

In the years since 1916,

no-one's ever been fully certain of exactly what happened here

and why it was so hard to clear.

But now the archaeologists are hoping to find out.

They've used lidar, a laser mapping system,

to read the landscape from the air.

It can even see through trees and vegetation.

They are looking for clues in this never-before-seen landscape -

new discoveries might help them better understand

what slowed down the Welsh advance.

Once we've stripped away all the tree cover from the lidar data,

we get the sort of bare earth,

so we can start to see features on the ground.

-Mm-hmm.

-And you can see these very large crater-like features.

Those are colossal. They're not on any maps, are they, Andy?

-ANDY:

-No, they're not. And those, actually,

have some rectangular sides to them, so they're not shell holes.

Also, you can see, to the east of that,

you can see there's another slight, subtle feature here.

There's something showing up beneath the trees

and Andy's spotted another clue on the wartime map.

It's a mark in exactly the same part of the wood.

The good thing about the map is that it shows the objectives,

the positions they were meant to get to at various times of the battle.

They go first to the first path across the wood

and then they're meant to move onto the second path across the road,

much further to the north.

But below it, there's a grey band.

What does that grey band say?

It says, "Line reached at July 10th-11th, night."

But that's short of the objective they're meant to reach.

And it seems... Well, it suggests to me that they got stopped.

In fact, just looking at this now,

they get stopped short of their second objective

along the line of those big features and also your anomaly.

So what are these features showing up

both on the wartime map and the airborne survey?

100 years on, could they help prove

how hard the Welsh soldiers really fought?

It's time to go exploring.

The first objective is actually here.

And then we are going to go roughly the same distance up there again.

They're following the main path running through the wood.

Hang on. Ah! What's that? What's that? That's linear.

No, it's a shell crater. Two.

Two.

-What have we got?

-Shell crater upon shell crater, we really have.

-Really?

-What's this? What's this?

That's a bank.

Ah-ha! What on earth is this?

This isn't on any of the trench maps.

Look at it!

What?! Can you imagine coming across that? Bloody hell!

You wouldn't want to fall in there in the dark, would you?

-That's a quarry, isn't it?

-That's huge. It must be a quarry.

That's critical - if you're coming through the wood

-and are suddenly faced with that and the Germans know it's here.

-Yes.

-That gives you a massive position.

-Will this stop them in an attack?

-You wouldn't want to go down there and try and get up the other side

-if it's like this.

-Especially with being shot at.

-Well, you're like a rat in a trap.

These quarries must be what showed up on the aerial survey.

But after spending some time examining them,

the archaeologists work out that they predate the war.

So we're here, that's the track...

It is not the vital evidence they were hoping for.

But there's a second mark that's showed up on the survey

over on the other side of the path.

Oh, my goodness.

Look at this!

As soon as they get over and take a look,

they realise they've found something very big.

That's a real labyrinth of trenches, isn't it?

Behind us, in front of us, going off over there, running through there.

I've got to say, if you're going to defend this wood,

it's a fantastic position to be.

So with very little time left on the dig, it's all hands to the pump.

They're working fast to figure out exactly what they've got here.

It's back-breaking work, hacking through stony soil,

but it doesn't take them long to determine

that these are deep wartime trenches.

Looking at this, I reckon...

-You've got clear topsoil.

-Yeah.

-Then you're coming down onto the chalk,

and then you've got... All of that is the deposit.

-Stuff that's been...

-The deposit when they dug the trench.

-Yeah.

-Out it went.

-That makes sense.

Gareth wants to find out if this is the clinching evidence

they've been looking for.

So, Gareth, you've been down the bottom, you've seen some trenches.

You haven't seen anything like this, mate.

Look over here.

All the way round here, all the way through there,

all the way down through there, we've got a complete trench system.

So all separate trenches, but interlinked?

Yeah. All interlinked.

You've also got what looked to us

like lots of depressions in the ground, all these big mounds -

they're possibly dugouts that have collapsed in.

So you've probably got a major command centre,

-something like that here.

-Oh, my word! So this is massive?

It is colossal, colossal.

And we were racking our brains trying to think of anything

comparable on the entire Somme battlefront and...

I can't think of anything.

There are a couple of other woods that have got this sort of thing in

but nothing that I've seen on this scale.

This network of defences is a major new discovery,

one that would never have been made without the lidar survey.

It's new information that finally helps explain

why the Welsh Division had such a tough time clearing the wood.

And you think of this.

The scale of this thing, it's colossal,

the Welsh troops don't know about it because it's not on the maps,

it's not on their reconnaissance information,

and they're coming straight at it through the woods from down there.

It just shows the sheer endeavour and the heroism

of those men 100 years ago to succeed against odds like this.

It took the Welsh Division three days of tough, dirty fighting

to finally end the battle.

And by that point, there wasn't much of Mametz Wood left standing.

In the light of what the archaeologists have discovered,

perhaps now we can finally put to bed any accusations

of lack of determination on the part of the Welsh troops.

Before the Thomas family leave France,

there's one last piece of the jigsaw puzzle to fill in.

Andy has been busy exploring the historic records

and he's learned more about Gareth's other great uncle, Edward Thomas.

He has found out that Edward was part of a night attack

in an area just to the east of Mametz.

Right, you've probably worked out why we've come here.

We're obviously looking here at what happens to Edward,

your uncle, your great uncle.

At the time, he's serving as Sergeant

in the 10th battalion of the Royal Welch Fusiliers.

On the 16th, the commanding officers are told

they're going to make an attack on the enemy

and they're going to attack Lonely Trench

and this is Lonely Trench here

and the attacks will occur in darkness.

So it was the element of surprise?

That was the idea. Use the dark to get closer.

But the darkness is a double-edged weapon.

Yes, it gives you surprise, but what it doesn't necessarily do

-is allow people to know where you are on the battlefield.

-Yeah.

They make an attack

and they get to within about 15 yards of the German front line.

But it all goes wrong.

Our artillery open fire but they make a mistake.

They drop short.

They're not hitting the German trench -

they're actually hitting no-man's land, with our men in it,

and they get shelled by their own artillery.

-Oh, my goodness!

-And I've got here...

Yeah. ..a list of all of the men that die

and that is over 80 men killed.

Here, Sergeant Edward Thomas.

It says that he dies on the night of the 17th to the 18th.

A confusion. Do you know what? The mad thing is, it doesn't shock me.

Cos I've heard all the stories that all seem to be the same.

-Like, there's some kind of confusion...

-Yeah.

and the communication was the thing

that, kind of, was the let-down in the First World War.

You can't have words for that. I just haven't got a word for it.

I just have not got a word for it.

Not at all.

-BARRY:

-And probably lying here somewhere.

Yes. If they haven't been recovered,

they may well have gone into a shell hole,

or their mates put them into a shell hole.

And then, after the war,

if they weren't picked up when they cleared the battlefields,

they could be here.

Edward Thomas' body was one of thousands never recovered.

Sometimes, corpses were trapped out of reach in no-man's land.

And sometimes, after a direct hit, there was simply nothing left.

We still probably have 200,000 missing.

-Ah!

-BARRY:

-Oh!

All the missing British and Commonwealth troops of the Somme

are commemorated on the vast Thiepval Monument.

It stands on a high ridge, just a few miles from Mametz Wood.

And every single missing soldier had his name carved onto the walls

of this vast mausoleum.

Gareth's uncles are among them.

There you go, boys.

-Hmm.

-Taken 100 years but...

-Better late than never.

-Yeah, definitely.

Gareth, I know that you view this area as sacred soil.

The place where so many young Welshmen shed blood.

I'd like to present you something, if you could come forward.

Everybody's packed up and ready to head for home

but not before completing one last ritual.

Please accept this on behalf of our team.

The archaeologists are giving Gareth something to remind him of the dig.

A poppy pin made of shell metal from Mametz.

-TEARFULLY:

-Thanks to everyone for this.

Erm...

It's been an honour to be a part of this team, this process.

I've learned a lot about my great uncles,

a lot about the history of them.

I've learnt a lot about myself

but it's been great to do it with so many great people.

Erm...

People I massively respect.

Erm...

Heroes amongst us.

Sometimes, you think you do things in life

that can't make you any more proud

and I thought playing for Wales was, for me, the ultimate thing.

But I think finding out this story

and not just of William and Edward

but the story of everybody is...

..definitely a moment that...

that matches any pride I had when I wore a Welsh rugby jersey.

-HE SNIFFS

-Thanks. Cheers.

APPLAUSE

They shall not grow old as we that are left grow old.

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them.

Ladies and gentlemen, the 38th Welsh Division.

The Welsh Division.

SHE SOBS