London Irish Rifles - 18th Battalion London Regime

[Stuart Roper]

Has anyone scoured the war diary for this battalion? Specifically, the entry for the first day of the attack on Loos.

If anyone has this transcribed I would appreciate a copy, feel free to PM me. I cannot visit Kew until December and I am in the process of teaching a history class about a local man, Charles Percy Mayne, who died on the 25th. My students would appreciate your help....

Many thanks

[curranl]

Hello Stuart and welcome to the Forum,

I can't help you with the war diary, I'm afraid, but I can recommend two books that cover this specific battalion and the Loos battle; Patrick MacGill's The Red Horizon and The Great Push. MacGill was a stretcher bearer in the London Irish and gives a first hand account of the Loos action. Don't expect any great explanation of the bigger battle - the books are a stretcher bearers view of life in the trenches (and all the better for that).

The books might be difficult enough to find.

Regards,

Liam.

[squirrel]

MacGill's book The Big Push is listed on the Naval & Military Press site- a reprint.

You could try writing to The London Irish Rifles Museum for a copy of the war diary entry but it may take some time as the Curator is part time . The Museum is run by the Regimental Association and is based at : Connaught House, Flodden Road, Camberwell, London SE5 and visiting is by appointment only.

There are quotes from soldiers of the London Irish Rifles in Philip Warner's book The battle of Loos, Battleground Europe series- Loos-Hill 70 and I think there is

also a quote in Max Arthurs Forgotten Voices of The Great War.

I have a copy of the Battalion orders for the 25th september 1915 - PM me if you would like a copy.

[curranl]

Well Done Squirrel!

I couldn't remember whether it was The Great Pushor The Big Push, so I naturally picked the wrong one.

Regards,

Liam.

[Alan_J]

Stuart,

Welcome to the Forum.

I'm afraid I can't help you with the War Diary, but we have exchanged a couple of e-mails on this (via my website), and I thought it worth pointing out another couple of avenues in relation to your research that you might want to explore.

Firstly, I will e-mail you the scan of the Cuinchy trenchmap scan as discussed, but one of the members on this Forum, Croonaert, has a collection of trenchmaps and has posted several on his website, Paths of Glory - including one of the exact area you are interested in. As these are scans of originals, they are in colour, and as you want to use it for educational purposes, I am sure if you contacted him he would not mind you using the scan. The map is on this page - see about half way down on the left. You can contact him via the website.

Secondly, there is a section on the forum "I'm going to the NA", and there are sometimes offers from people who are going to Kew to look up things - might be worth posting a request in there for the date you are interested in from the War Diary.

I got your second e-mail and will be replying soon.

Best wishes

Alan