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Age-21

20, Lindale Street, Poplar

The Battle of Loos, fought by the British Army from 25^th September, 1915 through to 13^th October, was conducted along a six-and-a-half-mile front running north from the mining village of Loos on the outskirts of Lens in Northern France. It was the largest offensive carried out by the British so far in the war. The opening day involved an attack by six divisions, with others entering the fray as it progressed and it was part of a much wider offensive with the French launching their own attacks in Champagne and at Vimy. It was the first time that the British used gas during the war, despite their condemnation of the Germans for doing the same in April 1915. There were some encouraging results on the first day but no major breakthrough was achieved and in the successive days the offensive became mired in trench warfare. By mid-October the battle had petered out with the British having suffered over 60,000 casualties during its course.

At 6.30am on 25^th September, 1915, 9^th (Scottish) Division, in action for the first time, attacked towards the village of Auchy. But in order to capture that village they would first have to overcome a formidable German stronghold, the Hohenzollern Redoubt. This was successfully achieved by 26 Brigade but to their left, the attack of 28 Brigade came to grief from machine gun fire from three German strongholds.

27 Brigade was in reserve and at 8am, three of their battalions were ordered forward to reinforce 26 Brigade in Pekin Trench.  12^th Royal Scots, leading, made Pekin Trench with only a few casualties.  11^th Royal Scots, were delayed by congestion in the communication trenches and did not advanced until 9am.  They should have headed towards the tower of Douvrin church beyond Haines but two of their companies lost direction, veered left and took fire from Auchy cemetery.  Moving right they were confronted by the wire entanglements of Haisnes Trench  and were hit by heavy fire from Haisnes.  A dozen got into this trench but the rest were either killed or retired to Fosse 8.  The other two companies of 11^th Royal Scots maintained direction and joined up with 8^th Gordon Highlanders and 12^th Royal Scots in Pekin Trench.  At 9.30am, the 3^rd battalion, 10^th Argylle &Sutherland Highlanders moved forward but were heavily shelled en route and did not reach Fosse Alley until midday.  By now the position in front of Haisnes had changed to one of danger rather than opportunity.  German artillery now had their range and strong German forces were bombing their way along the trench from both north and south and there was fierce fighting all afternoon.