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Accrington's Pals: the full story


Chris_Baker

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Accrington's Pals: the full story

by Andrew Jackson

republished by Pen & Sword Military, 2013

ISBN 978 1 84884 469 8

cover price - £25.00

Hardback, 222pp plus notes and index, illustrated

reviewed by Chris Baker

I though this was likely to be a good book when I saw the name of the author. Andrew Jackson has, for many years, operated a website about the Accrington Pals, the 11th (Service) Battalion of the East Lancashire Regiment. It is a model of clarity and good research, and unlike many of the other works on this unit covers all of the "pals" story and not just the dreadful day of 1 July 1916. For any aspiring researcher of a unit, a battle or a war memorial, you would profit from looking at Jackson's work as a standard to be achieved.

In "Accrington's Pals: the full story", Andrew Jackson provides us with a much broader view of the war experience of the Lancashire town of Accrington and the men of nearby Chorley, Burnley and Blackburn who joined the ranks of the Accrington-raised units. He naturally focuses on the "pals" but brings into the story a much less well-known unit, the 158th (Accrington & Burnley) Brigade of the Royal Field Artillery. These were far from the only units into which men of the area served in the war: many had enlisted into the regular army or Territorials long before recruitment began for the "pals; many were conscripted into other units from 1916 onwards. These men receive relatively little coverage in the war but they are put into context to help explain the war experience of the town and not just its locally raised units.

The book is well written and engaging, taking us from pre-war days and providing non-Lancastrians with a good idea of the area and life there in 1914, through the days of enlistment and training and out into the theatre of war. In a sense, the climax comes early as the Accrington Pals went into action at Serre on the first day of the Somme, and suffered terribly heavy losses. Things were never quite the same again for the battalion but Jackson reveals that the local nature of the battalion remained for much of the war. The experience of the artillery brigade, a howitzer unit, was inevitably different but it too had its tragedies and triumphs and all are covered here.

Excellent.

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Thanks Chris, it sounds fascinating and I think I'll get this one to read on holiday.

You can get it on Amazon here:

Amazon - Accrington's Pals, The full story

I anyone does get it from Amazon, please use the link: 'Support by Amazon and AbeBooks' in yellow text, at the top of the forum page which ensures that when you buy from Amazon the forum benefits financially from it.

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  • 2 months later...
  • 7 years later...

Hello,

My Great Grandfather Ernest Percy Brown L/197 was in 158th Howitzer Brigade and survived the war. I have some newspaper articles, he was B battery. It features a lovely picture of not only him but a few of the other men too. I have bought the book and am currently reading it to gain further insight into my Great Grandfathers time during the war.

 

I thought perhaps there might be other looking for their ancestors and might find the image interesting.

 

Sarah :)spacer.png

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On 20/10/2013 at 18:51, Ron da Valli said:

I have the original "Pals" book by Andrew Turner and this looks to be a very good companion to that. Andrew Jackson's Accrington Pals website is also a great place to go for more information.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nosmo-king/10386354386/

Have you never given a thought to how that web site came to be, Bill. Turners book on the Accrington Pals (I was his researcher Bill didn't like computers.)  that book took two retired owd ******* over 3 years of painstaking research, yet within a couple of months it on the web, containing the same mistakes on names and numbers from Fergus Reads  original list, I have dozens & dozens of names & numbers that jackson doesn't know about, plus since Bill died in 22007 I have found a further 657 men who served in the 11th Batt East Lancs.

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