RELATIVES of fallen war heroes are being sought for a commemorative exhibition.

July 1 marks 100 years since the start of the Battle of the Somme, one of the bloodiest battles in human history.

The battle was fought between the armies of the British and French empires against the German empire.

To mark the centenary of the battle The Fusilier Museum, Bury, are putting on a commemorative exhibition.

The exhibition, which will open on July 2, centres around the Lancashire Fusiliers who have no grave and are commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing in France.

Some of the missing men who will be featured in the exhibition will be Pte Patrick Joseph Murphy, Pte William Murfitt, Second Lt James Calrow Sharp, CSM Joseph Patrick Hastings, Sgt Liebig Cryer, CSM Ernest Bertram Wood and CSM Francis Creegan.

Relatives of the missing men are being asked to come forward with any information or memories that they have that could feature in the exhibition.

The stories of the men featured in the exhibition are taken from the work of Pam and Ken Linge who have dedicated a large part of their lives looking into each individual name on the memorial.

They have tirelessly compiled information and photographs on almost 12,000 of the 72,000 of the men, most of which were killed during the 141 days of the Battle of the Somme.

Mr Linge, 67, explained why they wanted to find out more information on the missing soldiers.

He said: "There are 72,000 men who are only a name on a memorial, what we wanted to do is put a face to a name and give a little bit of an insight into their lives.

"They had lives before the Somme and we think it's important that people know about that."

The couple, who live in Northumberland, have dedicated their lives to the project since 2003.

Mr Linge said: "We have been going through records and old newspaper clippings finding out what we can. When we started out we wanted to have done 10,000 by the centenary so to have done more than that is great.

"The stuff we are finding out is really interesting and shows the different lives and backgrounds that people had before the Somme."

Mr and Mrs Linge were approached by staff at the museum two years ago and it has been a project which has been coming together since then.

He said: "We already had quite a bit of information on the Lancashire Fusiliers so we have just made sure that we prioritised those to make sure we had enough information for the exhibition.

"We hope people will find it interesting and if they come down maybe they will be able to give us some more information about some of their relatives, that would be fantastic."

The exhibition has been supported by the Heritage Lottery fund, The Booth Charities, James Sharp & Co, NADFAS Bolton, Derek Carlow and Eileen Ferns and family.

Anyone with any information about the above individuals should contact Sarah Stevenson at the museum on 0161 763 8950 or email enquiries@fusiliermuseum.com