This week tributes are being paid across Europe and the world to those who served one hundred years ago at the Battle of the Somme. In this week's post, I look at two extraordinary men who survived both the battle and the First World War, and whose cremation records are found in the Deceased Online database. The first day of the Battle of the Somme, the 1st of July 1916, remains the bloodiest 24 hours in British military history. Those soldiers of the British Empire who went "over the top" on this day a century ago had no idea how devastating this battle would be. Tens of thousands of men walked out of their trenches and straight into German machine-gun fire. On just this one day, 19,240 were killed and around 40,000 wounded. Those that survived were left with lifelong turmoil. Musicians like Ralph Vaughan Williams and writers such as J.R.R. Tolkein would, famously, transmute their experiences through art. Others were left with "shell shock" or what we now u