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It's the night of July 14th, 1916, in northern France in the middle of World War I.

The Battle of the Somme has been raging for three weeks. Near the tiny French village of La Broselle,

British troops have punched a hole through the German lines and are in a desperate fight to take control of a nearby hill.

Waiting in reserve, ready to support the attack, are soldiers from the 11th Battalion of the

Lancashire Fusiliers.

A sudden explosion lights up the night sky ahead, illuminating the pale face of a slender and smooth-skinned British lieutenant.

The 24-year-old officer crouches in a trench beside his men, waiting for orders to join the attack.

All around him is an eerie land of unnatural shadows, a deep crater, shattered trees, and the bloated bodies of the dead.

There's a whistle, and the lieutenant knows it's time for him and his men to advance,

to take the hill or die trying.

Prior to the Battle of the Somme, the British generals hoped the engagement would provide the

breakthrough they needed to win the war against Germany, but the offensive fails miserably.

For the cost of almost half a million British casualties, the Germans are pushed back only

six miles. The young British lieutenant, John Ronald Ruel Tolkien, survives the battle, but several of his

close friends die in the fighting. Then in October 1916, J.R.R. Tolkien falls severely ill with a

disease caused by lice, known as trench fever. The following months, Tolkien is sent home to

England to recuperate. He doesn't see action for the rest of World War I.

But Tolkien never forgets the terrible things he saw, the friendships he made in the trenches,

...