Which military regiment did J.R.R. Tolkien serve with during the Battle of the Somme?

J.R.R. Tolkien served with the Lancashire Fusiliers during the Battle of the Somme in 1916.

Tolkien received a commission as a second lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers after studying at Oxford. He arrived in France in June 1916 and took part in the Somme offensive, one of the First World War’s largest and deadliest campaigns. He served as a battalion signals officer, helping maintain communications under extremely dangerous conditions.

Tolkien later returned to England after becoming ill with trench fever. His wartime experience has often been discussed alongside the landscapes, friendship, loss, and industrial devastation in his fiction. It would be inaccurate, however, to treat Middle-earth as a direct military memoir: Tolkien drew on many sources, including languages, mythology, medieval literature, and personal experience.