As part of the BBC’s World War One Season, the BBC will broadcast a series of live programmes to mark the centenary of the Battle of the Somme.
Presented by Huw Edwards in Thiepval, France, and Kirsty Young in Westminster Abbey, London, The Centenary Of The Battle Of The Somme: The Vigil will be broadcast live from 7.30pm to 9.30pm on Thursday 30 June on BBC Two. One hundred years on from the eve of the battle, commemorations will begin at Westminster Abbey where Her Majesty the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh will lead the Nation’s remembrance at the Grave of the Unknown Warrior.

Immediately after, TRH The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and HRH Prince Henry of Wales will attend a vigil service at The Thiepval Memorial in France – The Commonwealth War Graves Commission Memorial to the Missing. The memorial bears the names of more than 72,000 men who died on the Somme and have no known grave.

Vigils will be held through the night in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as communities across the nation come together to remember all those lost at the Somme:

The Scottish National War Memorial in Edinburgh Castle

Clandeboye and Helen’s Tower, County Down, Northern Ireland

The Welsh National War Memorial, Cardiff

At 7.30am on 1 July 1916, whistles were blown up and down the British front line and thousands of men climbed from their trenches into no man’s land; it was the first day of the Battle of the Somme. To mark this moment, Huw Edwards in Thiepval and Kirsty Young in Westminster Abbey present The Centenary of the Battle of the Somme: Zero Hour, a special live broadcast from on Friday 1 July on BBC One. The Kings Troop Royal Horse Artillery will fire their guns on Parliament Square and two minutes silence will be observed. BBC Radio stations will also observe the two minutes silence.

Coverage continues later that morning live on BBC One from 9.15am to 12.15pm with The Centenary of the Battle of the Somme: Thiepval. TRH The Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall, TRH The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and HRH Prince Henry of Wales will join Heads of State and 10,000 spectators. Guests include members of the public (UK, French, Irish), military personnel and British and French school children. The commemoration will reflect the story of the whole battle, from its first day on 1 July to its conclusion on 18 November 1916 and remember the one million men killed or wounded on both sides.

Huw Edwards presents The Centenary of the Battle of the Somme (11pm – 12.30am, Friday 1 July BBC Two), edited highlights of the day’s moving Somme Centenary commemorations including the National Commemorative Service at Manchester Cathedral.

Phil Dolling, Head of BBC Events says: “The Battle of the Somme was one of the bloodiest of World War One and has come to symbolise the horror of warfare. For just under five months a brutal battle of attrition raged culminating in over a million men killed or wounded. We come together, exactly one hundred years on, to remember and pay tribute to all those who lost their lives.”

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