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Remembered Today:

Loos 26 September 2005


Moriaty

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Considering it was the very first action for the newly formed Guards Division in WWI I was surpised there was so little representation from the present Guards Bde. I only saw one Scots Gds officer the whole weekend.

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Martin

I wrote to Major-General Sebastian Roberts, GOC London District and of The Household Division, earlier this year when the arrangements were being made for the commemorations at Loos. In my letter I pointed out the significance of the Battle of Loos for the Guards as it was the first action in which the Guards Division took part (as well as the first battle in which the Welsh Guards fought). Unfortunately, he replied that he could only send one officer as a representative of the entire Household Division due to operational and public duties commitments.

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Considering how many regiments took part in the battle of Loos there were disappointingly few representatives from the regular Army at the commemorations.

There was a good turn out from the regimental and old comrades associations though.

Apart from the London Scottish and The London Irish Rifles pipes and drums, the lone lone piper and the Light Infantry Buglers appeared to be the only musicians and some officers and men from the Light Infantry, HLI and KOSB's the only regular soldiers.

The Scots Guards Officer could have been the one attached to The London Regiment to advise on ceremonial etc.

While it was a thoroughly enjoyable and moving day on the Sunday it was disappointing not to have seen a better turn out from the regular Army although I appreciate that they do have a vast number of other commitments.

Hohhenzollern Redoubt was much as I had expected it to be from the reports and pictures I have seen and we were asked to leave by a Guarde de Chasses as there was a shooting party about to come through.

I hope none of them accidentally potted the grenade we spotted in one of the hedges! At least I was able to see roughly where my father's cousin was wounded with 1st Grenadier Guards in October 1915.

Peter Last deserves a great deal of thanks and credit for seeing to it that this battle was not forgotten.

Some people I have spoken to are already talking about going to Loos for the 95th and 100th anniversaries to make sure that it is remembered.

Thanks to all who took organised, took part and attended these commemorations.

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Considering how many regiments took part in the battle of Loos there were disappointingly few representatives from the regular Army at the commemorations.

There was a good turn out from the regimental and old comrades associations though.

Apart from the London Scottish and The London Irish Rifles pipes and drums, the lone lone piper and the Light Infantry Buglers appeared to be the only musicians and some officers and men from the Light Infantry, HLI and KOSB's the only regular soldiers.

The Scots Guards Officer could have been the one attached to The London Regiment to advise on ceremonial etc.

While it was a thoroughly enjoyable and moving day on the Sunday it was disappointing not to have seen a better turn out from the regular Army although I appreciate that they do have a vast number of other commitments.

Hohhenzollern Redoubt was much as I had expected it to be from the reports and pictures I have seen and we were asked to leave by a Guarde de Chasses as there was a shooting party about to come through.

I hope none of them accidentally potted the grenade we spotted in one of the hedges! At least I was able to see roughly where my father's cousin was wounded with 1st Grenadier Guards in October 1915.

Peter Last deserves a great deal of thanks and credit for seeing to it that this battle was not forgotten.

Some people I have spoken to are already talking about going to Loos for the 95th and 100th anniversaries to make sure that it is remembered.

Thanks to all who organised, took part and attended these commemorations.

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Considering how many regiments took part in the battle of Loos there were disappointingly few representatives from the regular Army at the commemorations.

There was a good turn out from the regimental and old comrades associations though.

Apart from the London Scottish and The London Irish Rifles pipes and drums, the lone lone piper and the Light Infantry Buglers appeared to be the only musicians and some officers and men from the Light Infantry, HLI and KOSB's the only regular soldiers.

The Scots Guards Officer could have been the one attached to The London Regiment to advise on ceremonial etc.

While it was a thoroughly enjoyable and moving day on the Sunday it was disappointing not to have seen a better turn out from the regular Army although I appreciate that they do have a vast number of other commitments.

Hohhenzollern Redoubt was much as I had expected it to be from the reports and pictures I have seen and we were asked to leave by a Guarde de Chasses as there was a shooting party about to come through.

I hope none of them accidentally potted the grenade we spotted in one of the hedges! At least I was able to see roughly where my father's cousin was wounded with 1st Grenadier Guards in October 1915.

Peter Last deserves a great deal of thanks and credit for seeing to it that this battle was not forgotten.

Some people I have spoken to are already talking about going to Loos for the 95th and 100th anniversaries to make sure that it is remembered.

Thanks to all who organised, took part and attended these commemorations.

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Both Peter and myself wrote to the Regimental Headquarters of all the modern regiments and corps whose predecessors fought at Loos to inform them of the commemorations and to request representation. Luckily some of the responses were very positive, as you could see with the size of the contingents that were sent, but other RHQ's were either dismissive or did not respond at all.

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Andrew,

thanks for all your hard work on this - shame some of the responses from the regulars were not more positive.

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Well done to Andrew and Peter for some really worthwhile work. I really wished I could have attended.

I think you will always geta range of responses and this was a really good turn out.

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Thanks Ian

If you consider that Peter did the vast majority of the co-ordination himself without the aid of a "project office" to support him, unlike some of these events have, I think he did a fantastic job. I expect that the 90th Anniversary commemorations on the Somme next year will benefit from some form of official MOD support, rather than relying on the efforts of an individual to pull everything together.

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Hi Andrew (Thornton),

I was glad you were able to make it to Loos after all the work you put into the different letters which we prepared for each regiment. As you say, some didn't respond at all. Some insisted they couldn't spare anyone, but, without wishing to criticise squirrel's observations in any way - I was glad he was there, and clearly enjoyed himself - to be fair to the British Army, I think I should put on record that the following regiments actually attended the ceremonies, in uniform:-

The London Irish Rifles

The London Scottish Regiment

The Light Infantry

The Royal Artillery

The Royal Engineers

The Scots Guards - only one man, but he was a Lieut.Colonel.

The Royal Highland Fusiliers

The Black Watch, incl. 1 piper

The Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters

The Highlanders

The King's Own Scottish Borderers, incl. 2 pipers

The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers - again, only one man, but he is a full colonel. (By the way, he is 6 ft. 7 ins. tall plus a hackle on his beret! but squirrel might have missed him because he didn't take part in everything - he had driven from Germany with his wife, just for the weekend.) Two of the other above contingents had also driven from Germany, and four of the groups had flown in specially from Scotland and Northern Ireland. I had also hoped to have soldiers from the Royal

Welch Fusiliers, in memory of Robert Graves,Frank Richards and friends, but they were stopped at the last minute - a group from their RHQ made it though.

Squirrel, please excuse me for correcting you on this point, but I'm just trying to be fair to those soldiers who did take part to remember their fallen comrades. What is perhaps more pertinent is to ask why there weren't more WW1 'enthusiasts' there to support such an important occasion taking place just one hour from Calais.

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Looser,

I stand corrected and thanks for explaining exactly who did take part. Although I was at Loos and Auchy-les-mines I didn't notice some of the cap badges of the regiments listed. Must just be me not being as observant as I might have been.

I did see the RRF Lt. Colonel (couldn't really miss him) but was advised by another innocent bystander that he might be the Colonel of The London regiment.

Where I could I did thank those who took part and enquired of several what units they were as I couldn't recognise all the cap badges, prefaced by a suitable apology for being unable to do so.

In the RRF Lt.Colonel's case his cap badge was obscured by cloud!

Not casting aspersions, but I had thought that there would be more people there as well.

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