55th West Lancashire Division

[millymcb]

Yes - the medal card does have a 1916 date on it - how odd.

I can't see a war diary digitised at national archives.  There is this - which just says 5th Battalion but it starts Feb 1915 when they went to France so looks very likely. Unfortunately it has not been digitised so you can't download it. You could ask for a quote to do it for you but it might be expensive.
http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/SearchUI/Details?uri=C7352176

At that time 1/5 Bn were with 12th Brigade 4 division - so a bit of research into what they were doing might be useful
"13 February 1915 :  landed at Le Havre. Attached on arrival to 12th Brigade in 4th Division
4 November 1915 : Brigade was attached to 36th (Ulster) Division"
http://www.1914-1918.net/southlancs.htm

Some info on 12th here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_12th_Infantry_Brigade#First_World_War



Milly

[GrahamShields]

Thanks Milly - I'll do some more digging. It looks like chlorine gas was used for the first time during the Second battle for Ypres in the spring of 1915. James may have been caught up in this.

Graham

[Stephen Nulty]

I've transcribed the complete 1/5 SLR diary, but will not be able to post a reply from that transcription for another day or so, but bear with me.........

[GrahamShields]

Brilliant - thank you very much Stephen 

Graham

[Stephen Nulty]

Here's the transcribed diary for May 1915, a dreadful month for the Battalion.

As with the earlier document, I have interspersed CWGC casualty details, but please note that in some cases, the number of men recorded as dying on any particular date does not always tally with the diary entry. There are any number of reasons for this and I have made no attempt to reconcile any differences.

James Billinge is listed on 9th May

[GrahamShields]

Thanks very much Stephen - most appreciated.

Yes, they were in a terrible area I believe.

[Dave Savage]

Hello, Mark

I'm impressed by your work on 55th Div.  I have two ancestors who served in the division:

Pte. Albert Kay - 1/7th King's (Liverpool) Regiment.  Though he appears to have been transferred from the ASC - do you think this would have been from one of the divisional ASC units? He was killed in action 20/09/1917 and I am trying to find out exactly where his battalion fought.  And how they got on. 

Pte. James Savage - 1/5th South Lancashire Regiment. 

Thanks

Dave

[km1971]

Hi Dave

What was his Liverpool number?

Ken

[Dave Savage]

Hello, Ken.  Albert's Liverpool number was 49849.