What was J.R.R. Tolkien’s military role during the Battle of the Somme?

During the Battle of the Somme, J.R.R. Tolkien served as a signals officer.

Tolkien enlisted in the British Army during the First World War and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers. He trained in signalling, a vital military function involving communication between units, and went to France in 1916. He served during the Somme offensive before falling ill with trench fever.

The Battle of the Somme began on 1 July 1916 and became one of the war’s most costly campaigns. Tolkien’s wartime experience influenced his life and is often discussed in connection with the atmosphere of loss, endurance, and fellowship in his fiction, although direct one-to-one identifications between real events and specific episodes should be treated cautiously.

Tolkien was invalided back to England later in 1916 and did not return to the front. His military service was therefore real and significant, but he was not an artillery commander or a medical officer.