5th Battalion, Kings Own (Royal Lancaster) Regiment

   5th Battalion, King's Own (Royal Lancaster) Regiment, was a unit of the Territorial Force with their HQ in Lancaster. They served with the North Lancashire Infantry Brigade, West Lancashire Division. When war broke out in August 1914 they were based in Lancaster with the North Lancashire Brigade, West Lancashire Division. After training, they proceeded to France, land at Le Havre on the 15th of February 1915, on the 3rd of March 1915 they joined 83rd Brigade, 28th Division. In 1915 they were in action in The Second Battle of Ypres and The Battle of Loos. On the 21st of October 1915 the battalion transferred to 2nd Brigade, 1st Division and on the 7th of January 1916 they transferred to the newly reformed 166th Brigade, 55th (West Lancashire) Division who were concentrating in the Hallencourt area. On the 16th of February 1916 the Division relieved the French 88th Division south of Arras, they moved to The Somme in late July taking over a section of front line near the village of Guillemont. They were in action at the The Battle of Guillemont, The Battle of Ginchy, The Battle of Flers-Courcelette and The Battle of Morval. The Division moved to Flanders in october 1916 and took over the front line between Wieltje and Railway Wood. In 1917 they were in action at Pilkem Ridge and Menin Road Ridge during the Third Battle of Ypres. They moved south to Cambrai where they suffered very heavily during the German Counter Attacks on the 30th of November 1917. In the Spring of 1918 they were in action in the Battle of the Lys including the Defence of Givenchy on the 9th to the 17th of April. In October they took part in the Final Advance in Artois. After the Armistice they were ordered to advance through Belgium and occupy the Rhine bridgeheads, but these orders were with drawn and the Division was demobilised in Brussels between January and April 1919.

23rd Apr 1915 Allies close gap near Ypres  The 2nd Buffs and 3rd Middlesex holding the line at the cross roads in the centre of Sint Jan, were joined by the 5th Kings Own and the 1st York and Lancs, to form the Geddes Detachment under the command of Col Geddes of the Buffs. They joined with the Canadian Division to fill the gap left by the French Colonials who had fled under a gas attack the previous evening. Later in the day the Geddes Detachment was reinforced and the seven battalions counter-attacked as part of a wider effort to stabilise the line.

6th Feb 1915 Instruction

2nd of March 1915 Patrols

2nd of March 1915 Machine Guns

3rd of March 1915 Enemy Fire Silenced

4th of March 1915 Enemy Nervous

6th of March 1915 No Hostile Patrols

7th of March 1915 A Searchlight Hit

10th of March 1915 POW Taken

11th of March 1915 Mortar Shells

13th of March 1915 Booby Trap

14th of March 1915 Artillery Quiet

16th March 1915 Information

16th of March 1915 No Hostile Patrols

17th Mar 1915 Relief Complete

17th of March 1915 Retaliation

18th of March 1915 Quiet Day

19th of March 1915 Patrols

20th of March 1915

23rd Mar 1915 Relief

27th Mar 1915 Relief Complete

29th Mar 1915 Reliefs

30th of March 1915 Hostile MG Damaged?

31st of March 1915

31st March 1915 Working Parties

31st of March 1915 Staff

1st of April 1915 Orders

2nd of April 1915 Quiet Day

7th of April 1915 Mostly Quiet

7th Apr 1915 Reorganisation

12th Apr 1915 Reliefs

17th Apr 1915 Reliefs

3rd May 1914 Shelling

8th May 1915 Heavy Fighting in Ypres Salient  On the morning of 8th May, the 3rd Monmouths had three companies in the front line and one in support. Half a mile to the north the 1st Monmouth's were fighting with the 83rd Brigade. The German bombardment began at 5.30 am followed by the first infantry attack at 8.30. In the words of Pte W.H. Badham: "They started bombarding at the same time in the morning and….afterwards we could hear a long blast of a whistle, and the attack started. We were only a handful of men, and they came on in thousands, but we kept them at bay"
Private A.L. Devereux carried this story forward in a letter he wrote to his family a day or two after the battle: "Hundreds of them were put of action with shells and it left very few men to man the trenches. After, the Huns shelled all the country for a couple of miles…stoping any reinforcements from being brought up and thousands of the rabble charged our trenches in their favourite massed formation. The few boys that were left in our trenches showed then the kind of stuff Britain can turn out and thousands of the Germans were put out of action"
Almost immediately, the shelling started again and at 09.00am the Germans attacked again and were again driven back. The Germans realised that their attack was making no progress, and they fell back so that the artillery could return to its task on the front line trenches. By 9.10 am the bombardment was as intense as at any time that morning and there was little that the soldiers could do except find what little cover they could.
Orders reached the 3rd Monmouth's and 2nd King's Own from Brigade HQ about 10am to evacuate the front line trenches. Captain Baker began withdrawing his Company, but immediately the enemy opened up an intense machine gun fire, followed by shrapnel, which practically swept away the few survivors of A and D Companies. Captain Baker was killed a few yards behind the front line. The order apparently never reached Lt Reed and he and few men of A Company, with some machine gunners held on gallantly and resisted to the last. Lt Reed was finally killed and no officer of A Company was left, and only 13 survivors amongst the men could be mustered. D Company stuck it gallantly. They lost their only officer Captain J Lancaster. Every Sergeant in the company was killed and only 16 men answered the roll call next morning. Of the 500 men in A and D Companies only 29 were left. B Company (under Captain Gattie) throughout the battle was separated from the rest of the Battalion. They were in the front line in a wood near Red Lodge. Rations and letters came up regularly and one fortunate officer even received a tin of cooked sausages! What the war diary does not record is that the new trenches had been hastily prepared and it was not as deep or as wide as had been hoped for by those men retiring to it. One member of the 3rd Monmouths noted: "….when we occupied this new line of trenches we found them very badly made and up to our knees in water, and the poor men had no chance of getting any sleep unless they wished to i.e. down in the water".
So dawned the most critical day of the great battle, the 8th May, The 3rd Monmouth's lay astride the Zonnebeke road, the apex of the Salient, two companies in the front line with one in support and the fourth company not far away to the south. Half a mile to the north was their sister battalion the 1st Monmouthshire's in the 84th Brigade. Holding the position with them were their comrades of the 83rd Brigade, the nd Kings Own to the north and to the south the 1st KOYLI who relieved the 1st York and Lancs and B Coy. 3rd Monmouth's on the night of the 7th May. The Brigade had been in the line without relief since April 17th . Its numbers were greatly reduced, and the artillery behind were few in numbers and woefully short of ammunition. As indicating the desperate position of the British troops in respect to artillery support, it is now authoritatively stated that the heavy British guns during this period of the 2nd Battle of Ypres were limited to:- One 9.2 inch howitzer, Eight 60 pdrs, Four old six inch howitzers, Twelve obsolete 4.7 inch guns.
Against them the Germans brought up at least 260 heavy guns and howitzers. There was nothing except the Division between the enemy and Ypres on that day and they got as far as Verlorenhoek, but the British soldier proverbially does not know when he is beaten and the Germans were kept back somehow till fresh troops were brought up in the evening to fill the many gaps. The enemy on their side were all out to push through. They had guns on the high ground enfilading the British position and smothering our artillery, they had field guns well forward, and they had innumerable machine guns, and six divisions of their best and freshest troops, against the depleted ranks of the war-worn and weary 27 th and 28 th Divisions. Their bombardment opened up at 5.30.a.m. and the trenches lying on the forward slope were badly damaged and almost untenable.
The wood came under heavy shelling and Lt Groves and Lt Palmer were killed by a direct hit on their dug out. After two German attacks on the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry in the front trenches, B Company charged across open ground to reinforce them. A dip in the ground favoured the advance and casualties were few, but Capt. Gardner was shot through the heart as he entered the trench, a great loss. He was one of the finest looking and best soldiers in the Battalion. 2/Lt. Paul was wounded at about the same time.
The first enemy infantry attack took place at 8.30.a.m. and was driven off. The bombardment re-opened and at 9.a.m. the enemy again attacked and were driven back. After a further hours intense shelling the front line was practically obliterated and the enemy found few survivors to hold up the attack. In A Coy 3rd Monmouths, Capt Baker and C.S.M. were killed and Lt Reed with a few survivors of his company held gallantly on and resisted to the last. This party and the machine gun section took heavy toll of the advancing enemy, but were finally overwhelmed by numbers. Lt. Reed was killed and no officer of A Coy was left and only 13 survivors amongst the men could be mustered. D Coy stuck it gallantly. They lost their only officer, Captain James Lancaster, beloved of all who knew him, and that fine type of Territorial soldier C.S.M. Lippiatt, who did such wonderful work training recruits almost single-handed at Abergavenny in August and September 1914. Every Sergeant in the company was killed and only 16 men answered the roll next morning. The machine-gun section were involved in this slaughter, and had one gun destroyed but one of the few survivors brought back the lock of the other.
Early in the day C Coy came into action in support, but little by little was forced back to Battalion HQ owing to the exposure of their flank from the north. Stragglers were coming down the road, so Col. Gough ordered Sergeant Jenkins to collect them in a trench in the rear, and for his fine services on this occasion coupled with the good work on the telephone; this old soldier received the DCM. This party and other remnants of the Battalion was led by Col. Gough in counter attack, but could only advance as far as the eastern edge of Frezenberg. In this advance R.S.M. Hatton was seriously wounded. He had accompanied the adjutant Capt. Ramsden, in many visits to the front line during the last terrible days and with him had often helped to stiffen the defence by cheery encouragement. He now refused to be carried back and was taken prisoner. His wounds were of such a nature that he was one of the first prisoners of war to be exchanged, but unhappily he died much regretted before the end of the war. He was a fine type of regular soldier from whom all ranks learnt much. After hanging onto this position for some time and holding up the advance, orders came at about 11.a.m. from the Brigade to retire on the GHQ line near Potijze.
Lt. McLean, M.O., 3rd Monmouth's and Lt.Marriott, M.O., 1st Monmouth's had established a dressing station just east of Verlorenhoek; at 11.a.m. they received orders to retire their detachments, but after sending back the stretcher bearers they found a number of wounded still coming back and so decided to carry on, till the enemy were practically in the village and Lt. McLean was wounded.
Just before mid-day the 2nd East Yorks were ordered to counter attack and after reaching Verlorenhoek with heavy casualties had to fall back on the G.H.Q. line. At 2.30.p.m. 1st York and Lancaster and 3rd Middlesex counter-attacked north and south of the railway, remnants of the 2nd East Yorks, 1st KOYLI, 2nd Kings Own, 3rd Monmouth's, 5th Kings Own going up into support. At 3.30.p.m. 2nd East Surreys, 3rd Royal Fusiliers arrived and were sent up in support. The counter attack, practically unsupported by artillery, made slow progress and by 5.30.p.m. was held up at a line running from Verlorenhoek south over the railway. This line was consolidated with fresh troops during the night and eventually became the approximate position of the front line until the British advance in 1917.
In the meantime the 3rd Monmouth Battalion with the exception of B Coy was withdrawn and marched back to huts at Vlamertinghe. B Coy throughout the battle was separated from the rest of the battalion. It reinforced 1st York and Lancs, coming under orders of the CO of that Battalion, and took over a trench on the extreme right of the Brigade and Division from a company of K.R.R.C. 27 th Division. The next unit on the right was the "Princess Pats". The position was in front of the wood near Red Lodge, about 300 yards south of the Roulers railway. The trench was newly dug like the rest of the line and not deep. It was also on a forward slope and the only communication trench was full of mud and impassable. Further, it lay along a lane with a hedge on one side and a line of poplars on the other, so that it was an admirable mark for the enemy's artillery observing on Westhoek Ridge. On May 5 th and in a smaller degree on May 6 th and 7 th the enemy bombarded the trench, but it was so narrow and well traversed that the damage was comparatively slight and casualties not as heavy as might be expected from such a bombardment. Sgt. Nash, a Territorial with much service, was killed on the 6th .
The attack in front was beaten off and the afternoon in the immediate neighbourhood proved quiet, but there was a great danger of the company being surrounded.. The P.P.C.L.I on the right were forced back to their support trench and on the left to the north of the wood there was a large gap and both flanks were more or less in the air. Accordingly Capt. Gattie went to the HQ of the Rifle Brigade, near Bellewaarde Lake, for reinforcements to protect the exposed flanks, especially to the north, and was able to guide them as far as the P.P.C.L.I. support trench, but machine gun fire prevented them from advancing further until dark. Meanwhile a party of the Monmouth's and KOYLI were in fact in advance of all other British troops with both flanks exposed. Towards the evening the bullets of our troops counter-attacking up the railway were beginning to take them in the rear, so that it was clearly impossible to hold on.
The party was now completely cut off from its own HQ, so Capt. Gattie proceeded to Brigade HQ for orders, leaving the remains of B Company under 2/Lt. Somerset. Under cover of darkness the men of both units filed out of the right end of the trench and were sorted out, and the men in the wood were ordered to re-join. This party had received no orders to advance in the morning and had been left behind. The senior soldier, Cpl. Sketchley, had kept them together during the day and now led 30 men out to join the Company. The enemy attack up the railway on his left had come so near that his party had taken a prisoner and they now brought him with them. Cpl. Sketchley received the D.C.M. for his great initiative and pluck at this period. Capt. Mallinson was awarded the D.S.O., for his fine leadership in maintaining this position and finally in extracting his party from a very difficult position. The enemy did not attempt to harass the withdrawal and the whole mixed party got safely back to Rifle Brigade HQ. After a halt there they proceeded across the railway to the Potijze road intending to rejoin the Brigade at Vlamertinghe.

21st Aug 1915 Reliefs

28th Aug 1915 Reliefs

29th Sep 1915 Reliefs Complete

16th Oct 1915 The Derby Scheme

1st Dec 1915 Derby Scheme Armlets

11th Sep 1915 Last day of Derby Scheme Recruitment

20th Dec 1915 Reliefs

10th Jan 1916 Group System Reopens

9th February 1916 Call Ups

4th Jun 1916 Rescue

8th August 1916 Bravey Recognised

18th Sep 1916 Reliefs

23rd Sep 1916 Reliefs Complete

23rd Oct 1916 Reliefs

16th May 1917 Reliefs Complete

15th Jun 1917 Reliefs Complete

17th Sep 1917 Reliefs

22nd Oct 1917 Reliefs

5th Sep 1918 Bands

© IWM (Q 9459)

Massed bands of the 166th Brigade Near Bethune, 5th Battalion, Royal Lancaster Regiment, 10th (Scottish) Battalion, King's (Liverpool Regiment), 5th Battalion, South Lancashire Regiment.

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Those known to have served with
5th Battalion, Kings Own (Royal Lancaster) Regiment
during the Great War 1914-1918.

Crewe William Leo. Pte. (d.24th April 1918)
Green William. Cpl. (d.10th Sep 1916)
Hinde Kenneth. 2nd Lt. (d.3rd Feb 1917)
Kirk Gerald. Lt
Makinson Edward. (d.30th Nov 1917)
Makinson Edward. (d.30th Nov 1917 )
Sighe Edward. Pte. (d.10th March 1917)
Waldron Harry. Pte. (d.26th Oct 1917)

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2nd Lt. Kenneth Hinde 5th Btn. Kings Own (Royal Lancaster) Regiment (d.3rd Feb 1917)

Kenneth Hinde served initially with the 61st Field Ambulance, RAMC and was wounded during February 1916 in the Ypres salient. On 21st of November 1916, he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the King's Own. At age 21, he was killed by enemy artillery fire on 3rd of February 1917.
Geoffrey Cuthill

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Pte. William Leo Crewe 1/5th Btn. Kings Own (Royal Lancaster) Regiment (d.24th April 1918)

William Crewe was born in 1899 in Preston Lancashire, the son of Margaret Ann Crewe and William Crewe. There is a War Memorial in the Harris Museum which has his name on it. I will remember my 3 times great uncle
Laura Fishwick

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Edward Makinson 5th Btn. King's Own (Royal Lancaster Regiment) (d.30th Nov 1917 )

Edward Makinson's body was never found and he has no grave we believe he died on this day.
Teresa

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Pte. Harry Waldron 5th Btn. Royal Lancaster Regiment (d.26th Oct 1917)

Harry Waldron was engaged to my maternal grandmother and they were to be married on his next leave. He was a soldier fighting on the western front in France. Unfortunately for Grandma (fortunately for me) he was killed before his next leave. Had that not been the case I would not be writing this now.
Michael Foster

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Pte. Edward Sighe 1/5th Btn King's Own (Royal Lancaster Regiment) (d.10th March 1917)

Edward Sighe enlisted in 1914 with the Kings Own Royal Lancaster Regiment 8th Bn then transferred to the 1/5 Bn. He left behind a son and daughter that he barely knew. He wasn't hit or wounded until 10th March 1917 when he was killed. Not sure where but the date was the same time as the occupation of Blakeley Crater he died of his wounds at age 33 he is buried at Poperinghe New Military Cemetery.
Justin

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Edward Makinson 5th Btn Kings Own Royal Lancaster Regiment (d.30th Nov 1917)

Edward Makinson served in the Kings Own Royal Lancaster Regiment, 5th Battalion he went to France but was injured in April 1915 and went back in as Major Atkinson's Batman. He was killed 30th Nov 1917 but no body was found, we believe parts of his body lie with in a grave at Bourlon Wood. His name is on the memorial panel at Cambria and his name is also on the Kings Own Royal Lancaster Regiment Panel at Lancaster.
Teresa

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Cpl. William Green 1/5th Kings Own Royal Lancaster Regiment (d.10th Sep 1916)

William Green was my grandma's brother. His war records were destroyed in the WW2 blitz but we do have a letter from the trenches to his mum and dad, Elizabeth and John Green who lived in Wesham nr Preston, Lancashire.
He was aged 29 when he died and was married to Mary. If anyone has any more info on him or anyone else from the same regiment, please get in touch by email. There is a photo of him in our local church, I will try to upload a copy at a future date.
Elaine Cottam

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Want to know more about 5th Battalion, Kings Own (Royal Lancaster) Regiment?

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5th Battalion, Kings Own (Royal Lancaster) Regiment
during the Great War 1914-1918.

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5th Battalion, Kings Own (Royal Lancaster) Regiment

Want to know more about 5th Battalion, Kings Own (Royal Lancaster) Regiment?

Those known to have served with5th Battalion, Kings Own (Royal Lancaster) Regimentduring the Great War 1914-1918.

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If you enjoy this site please consider making a donation.

Announcements

Recomended Reading.

Links

The Wartime Memories Project
- 5th Battalion, Kings Own (Royal Lancaster) Regiment during the Great War -

Those known to have served with
5th Battalion, Kings Own (Royal Lancaster) Regiment
during the Great War 1914-1918.