BURY'S Fusiliers saluted the thousands of soldiers who lost their lives in one of history's bloodiest battles.
To mark the 90th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme on Sunday, the Trieste Branch the XX 2nd Battalion, the Lancashire Fusiliers, laid a single wreath at the Cenotaph outside their headquarters at Wellington Barracks in Bolton Road.
The battle was intended to be a decisive breakthrough in the First World War but instead became a byword for futile and indiscriminate slaughter as a total of 19,240 British soldiers were killed, and 60,000 wounded, on the first day. The Battle of the Somme ended on November 13, 1916, and claimed the lives of more than a million men, with the Allies advancing just five miles into German-held territory.
Thousands of men from Bury and neighbouring towns were among the soldiers on the front line in northern France.
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