THE Imperial War Museum North will be remembering the brave soldiers of World War One tomorrow night.

The Air Shard at the Trafford museum will be lit up with a series of commemorative image projections on Thursday June 30, when thousands of soldiers would have been preparing to go to battle 100 years ago.

It will be lit up from 10pm until dawn.

Diane Lees, director general of Imperial War Museums, said: “The centenary commemorations of the Battle of the Somme will be marked by a series of moving images projected onto IWM North which will then of course be followed by events at Manchester Cathedral and Heaton Park in the following days.

“After this time, we’d like to share our knowledge on the battle through a series of tours, talks and film screenings over the coming months that would have been the duration of the battle.

“People can also research those who lived, died, fought and survived in the extensive records of the Lives of the First World War project at livesofthefirstworldwar.org.”

The Battle of the Somme

The Battle of the Somme saw the British Army suffer more casualties on July 1 1916 than in the entire Crimean, Boer and Korean Wars combined. Within the first 24 hours there were 57,740 casualties.

For more than 60 per cent of the Army, this was their first experience of battle. A seven day initial artillery bombardment was planned from June 24 until July 1 in attempt to destroy German trench defences and artillery. In the week leading up to the battle, more than 1.5 million shells were fired. Although this bombardment was the biggest yet, many of the British shells were duds which did not explode.

At 7.30am on Saturday July 1 1916, British troops advanced across no man’s land towards the German lines. Within in a few hours 19,240 British troops had been killed, out of a total of 57,470 casualties.

Despite the costly first day, the Somme offensive continued for another four and a half months until November 18 1916. It became a battle of attrition and over the 141 days of battle, the British took a strip of territory 10km deep and 32km long.

Over the course of the battle over one million men from all sides were killed wounded or captured.

The early stages of the Battle of the Somme were filmed for a documentary film The Battle of the Somme. The film, which is listed on UNESCO’s ‘Memory of the World’ register, was the first feature-length documentary to record war in action. It was seen by over 20 million people, almost half the population of Britain at the time, and is one of the most popular and successful films in British cinema history.

Courtesy of the Imperial War Museum, the film will be screened at Trafford Local Studies, in Sale, from July 1 to 9 at 2.30pm daily.