In which 1916 battle did J.R.R. Tolkien serve as a signals officer during World War I?

J.R.R. Tolkien served as a signals officer during the Battle of the Somme in 1916.

After graduating from Oxford and receiving military training, Tolkien was commissioned into the Lancashire Fusiliers. He went to France in June 1916 and took part in the Somme offensive, one of the largest and most destructive campaigns of the First World War.

Tolkien served with the 11th Lancashire Fusiliers and experienced trench warfare before becoming ill with trench fever. He was sent back to England in October 1916, and recurring illness prevented his return to active service in France. Many of his close school friends were killed during the war.

Readers often connect the Somme directly to specific scenes in The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien resisted simple one-to-one allegorical readings, but his wartime experiences clearly formed part of the historical background shaping his understanding of friendship, loss, endurance, and industrialized conflict.