by Chris Lloyd | DLI Somme Diary, Durham, In Your Town, War Stories
In the final part of his series tracing the battalion’s march to the Battle of the Somme, Tony Kearney finds the Durham Pals on the eve of slaughter. EXACTLY 100 years ago today, a former railway fitter lazed in the sun in a French farmyard, his back against a barn...
by Chris Lloyd | DLI Somme Diary, Durham, In Your Town, War Stories
IN the middle of June 1916, as the final preparations took place for the Big Push, the weather in France became miserable. Day after day it rained, filling the trenches with standing water and turning the battlefield to mud. Dug into their trenches outside the small...
by Chris Lloyd | DLI Somme Diary, Durham, In Your Town, War Stories
HISTORY books say that the Battle of the Somme began on July 1, 1916, but that was not the reality experienced by soldiers in the trenches. Every soldier on the Western Front, German and Allied, knew battle was coming: perhaps not where or when, but they knew the Big...
by Chris Lloyd | DLI Somme Diary, Durham, In Your Town, War Stories
AT the end of May, the Durham Pals were pulled back from the Somme’s frontline trenches and placed out of harm’s way in a camp at Warnimont Wood. Here, day after day, they practised attack on enemy held positions, unaware that the fateful first day of battle was now...
by Chris Lloyd | DLI Somme Diary, Durham, In Your Town, War Stories
LANCE-Corporal Frank Derwent Lockey was 34 when he was killed 100 years ago this week. He was part of a working party sent up to the frontline to repair the British barbed wire against German raids when he was hit in the head by a sniper. His friends later recounted...
by Chris Lloyd | DLI Somme Diary, Durham, In Your Town, War Stories
THE third and final time the Durham Pals went into the frontline trenches ahead of the Battle of the Somme was by far the toughest. In their first two spells at the front in northern France, the 18th Battalion of the Durham Light Infantry held the line at...
by Chris Lloyd | DLI Somme Diary, Durham, In Your Town, War Stories
ON the evening of May 14, 1916, for the third and final time before the fateful first day of the Battle of the Somme, the Durham Pals went back in the frontline trenches of the Somme. The 18th Battalion of the Durham Light Infantry had two previous experiences of life...
by Chris Lloyd | DLI Somme Diary, Durham, In Your Town, War Stories
DURING the first few days of May 1916, the Durham Pals were able to enjoy some well-deserved respite after the traumas of Easter Week. In their four days in the waterlogged trenches over Easter, 18th Battalion of the Durham Light Infantry had seen one of their...
by Chris Lloyd | DLI Somme Diary, Durham, In Your Town, War Stories
EASTER Week of 1916 saw the Durham Pals waist-deep in water and thoroughly miserable. Exactly 100 years ago Easter was three weeks later than this year, and so it was on April 20 – Maundy Thursday – that the volunteers of 18th Battalion of the Durham Light Infantry...
by Chris Lloyd | DLI Somme Diary, Durham, In Your Town, War Stories
CONDITIONS in the Durham Pals’ sodden camp in the woods were so bad 100 years ago that most were relieved to go back into the trenches. On the afternoon of Maundy Thursday – April 20, 1916 – the 18th Battalion of the Durham Light Infantry – commonly known as the...
by Chris Lloyd | DLI Somme Diary, Durham, In Your Town, War Stories
AFTER their baptism of fire during their first five days in the trenches, the Durham Pals received the order to withdraw, and at 8pm on April 3, 1916 they were relieved by the 12th Yorks and Lancs. During their first five-day taste, they’d been constantly under threat...
by Chris Lloyd | DLI Somme Diary, Durham, In Your Town, War Stories
AT dusk on March 29, 1916, the Durham Pals silently filed into the battered frontline trenches to the east of Auchonvillers, in northern France, and under cover of darkness took over the posts from the Royal Irish Rifles. Earlier that day, the battalion’s commanding...
by Chris Lloyd | DLI Somme Diary, Durham, In Your Town, War Stories
AT the end of March, the Durham Pals received the order to move up into the frontline trenches. Having volunteered in the heady days of late summer 1914 to do their duty, they now finally had the chance to face the enemy. On March 25, 18th Battalion of the Durham...
by Chris Lloyd | DLI Somme Diary, Durham, In Your Town, War Stories
AFTER a 50-hour train journey across the length of France, the Durham Pals arrived at Pont Remy in northern France, in the early hours of March 14. It was bitterly cold, but the men of the 18th Battalion Durham Light Infantry were simply glad to be off the train in...
by Chris Lloyd | DLI Somme Diary, Durham, In Your Town, Latest, War Stories
THE Durham Pals had spent a week at sea but, 100 years ago this week, within six hours of their feet touching the steady dry land of the port of Marseilles, they were packed into trains for the long journey north across France. The 18th Battalion of the Durham Light...
by Chris Lloyd | DLI Somme Diary, Latest, War Stories
Tony Kearney tells what the Durham Pals – volunteer soldiers from across the region – were doing 100 years ago this week, in the build up to their date with destiny: July 1, 1916, and the Battle of the Somme. AFTER two months in the Egyptian desert, the...
