Imperial War Museum expert Matt Lee believes he may have found the identity of a previously unnamed heroic soldier featured in the 1916 film The Battle of the Somme
20:16, 26 Nov 2021Updated 20:16, 26 Nov 2021
The mystery of the unknown soldier from war film The Battle of the Somme is one that has captivated historians for decades.
The striking image from the first day of fighting shows a man carrying a casualty through no-man’s-land.
Matt Lee, head of film at the Imperial War Museum, has spent much of his 21-year career trying to figure out who the hero was.
During this time Matt has had 120 people contact him believing the soldier to be one of their relatives.
Now, a breakthrough has meant that Matt is “closer than ever” to naming the First World War hero.
“The scene has become something of an iconic image,” says Matt. “People look at it and see their relative. It’s quite grainy footage, which means it is easy to see someone else’s face.”
He takes every claim seriously, trawling through archival footage.
The producers of The Battle of the Somme film did not keep records of who appeared in it and he was not wearing anything identifiable.
But the first episode of Channel 5 show Secrets of the Imperial War Museum has focused on Matt and his colleagues as they come close to naming him.
Three members of the same family have got in touch about their relative, an Irishman with the surname Brennan.
“It then made sense I hadn’t found anything that was helping me identify the man in the British press, so I started looking in the Irish press, turning through hundreds and hundreds of articles,” says Matt.
He found a letter in a newspaper from 1916, which said the man was gunner Charlie Brennan, from Dublin.
Matt’s team is still looking for firm proof that Charles – who died in 1982 – was at the battle, which took place in France between July November, 1916. Matt adds: “This is a major lead, probably the strongest contender.
“However, because his service record hasn’t survived we’ve never been able to pin down whether Charlie was at the Somme on the first day of fighting.
"His family have said he was but without that final clinching piece, the museum isn’t in a position to make a definite statement.”
The film was watched by 16 million people, and covered the deadliest battle in British military history, with 57,470 servicemen killed in action.
Matt adds: “Due to the number of casualties – more than 19,000 were killed on the first day – a lot of people would have been trying to recover the injured and the dead. This man is an everyman, who represents all soldiers who fought and died, in many ways.”
- Secrets of the Imperial War Museum, Fridays at 7pm, Channel 5.