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Archiver > GREATWAR > 2001-08 > 0999159368


From: Charles Clark <>
Subject: [WW1] Re: GREATWAR-D Digest V01 #262
Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 20:16:08 +1200
References: <200108300100.f7U10bE32520@lists7.rootsweb.com>





> Subject: [WW1] East Lancs Regiment.
> Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 20:21:28 +0100
> From: "Ken Sutcliffe" <>
> To:
>
> Good Evening,
>
> I hope that I can tap in to the expertise of members of this list as my own knowledge of the War is not enough to enable me to unravel my grandfather's record. I know only three things:
>
> My mother's birth certificate in 1915 describes him as a Private in the East Lancs Regiment and gives his number.
>
> I have a photograph of him in Army Tropical uniform.
>
> He apparently said that he had walked into Greece without boots.
>
> Where does this place him? Gallipoli? Salonika? Can someone tell me if the East Lancs took part in either of these campaigns?

Ken - the 9th Battalion, part of the 65th Brigade and 22nd Division,
gets a few mentions in Falls, Military Operations Macedonia. The first
mention of the 65th Brigade is on 7th Dec 1915, when they went up
from Salonika to Dojran to support the retreat from Serbia. They were
all back in Greece by the early hours of the 12th December.
That's no doubt where the walking into Greece without boots bit comes
from, and it was in the middle of a very severe winter,
too. Just shortly before, on the night of the 10th November, the 10th
Irish Division was caught out in a storm, also in tropical gear, and in
all some 23 officers and 1663 men of the
division had to be evacuated to Salonika on account of complete
collapse, frost-bite or general debility.
The 22nd Division (including your 9th East Lancs) arrived in Salonika
from the Western Front during November, so they were in action
reasonably quickly. They were a division of the New Army, formed in
September 1914 and sent to France a year later. They had not taken part
in a battle before going to Salonika, but "were composed of good,
well-trained young troops."
Charlie

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