The Accrington Pals

Of these easily-known association a town has is by owning a 'Accrington Pals', the nickname given to the little residence town battalion of volunteers formed to fight in World War I. A Pals battalions were a peculiarity of the 1914-1918 war: Lord Kitchener, the Secretary of State for War, believed that it would help enlisting whenever friends & operate-mates from either a equivalent town were entity to join higher & fight together. Strictly speaking, a 'Accrington Pals' battalion is properly referred to as a 'Eleventh East Lancashire Regiment': a nickname occurs as little deceptive, since of a 4 250-heavy corporations that mass produced higher the original battalion simply of these was actually composed of men from either Accrington. A rest volunteered from either more East Lancs towns like Burnley, Blackburn, and Chorley.

A Chum' number one day of combat, Saturday First July 1916, took place inside Serre northwards of France. It was a share of the 'Heavy Click' (late called a Battle of the Somme) that was intended to click a German army into a retreat from either the Western Front, a line it experienced held since late 1914. A German defences inside Serre were supposed to keep close at hand been obliterated by sustained, heavily, British bombardment in a period of a past week; notwithstanding, when the battalion advanced it met by owning fierce trend lines. 235 men were flushed, & the farther 350 injured — to a higher degree half of the battalion — inside half an hour. Likewise desperate losses were suffered elsewhere on the front, within the fateful day for the British army.

Late in a season, the East Lancs Regiment was rebuilt by owning newly volunteers — in all, 865 Accrington men wereFlushed in the period of Globe War We. Completely one list come recorded in the war memorial, an imposing whiten stone cenotaph, which sub Oak Hill Park to the south of the town. A cenotaph besides lists a list of 173 local fatalities from either World War II.

Reference

William Turner Brother: a Eleventh (Service) Battalion (Accrington), East Lancashire Regiment ISBN 0950789240

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