1/4th Battalion, Leicestershire Regiment

[Guest clairek]

My great great uncle, Harold Spence is listed on the Menin Gate having died on 21 August 1915. He was a Private in the 1/4th Battalion, Leicestershire Regiment. Does anyone know where this battalion was on this date or knows how I might go about finding this information?

[MartinWills]

Soldiers Died in the Great War gives Pte 3067 Harold Spence as killed in action on 21st August.

You will find some information about the 1st/4th Leicesters (a territorial unit) and its parent Division (46th North Midland) on the mother site (link to the Long Long Trail at top of this page). They were part of the 138th (Lincoln & Leicester Brigade)There is no divisional history covering the period but there is a history of the battalion "Footprints of the 1/4th Leicestershire Regiment August 1914 to November 1918" by John Milne and this has been reprinted by Naval & Military press at an affordable price.

It will tell you that at the time the battalion were in and out of the line in the Hooge area. They had been through a tough 28 days in the line before coming out of the line on 10th August to rest at Ouderdom huts.

The war diary exists at the National Archive at Kew (the old PRO) as reference WO 95/2690 and will doubtless give further information relating to the day though it will probably not name Harold saying only "so many" ORs (other ranks) killed. Sometimes war diaries conatin acres of information and sometimes they are very sparse. You don't know till you look.

Do let us know what you find.

Martin

[Steve Bramley]

Hi Claire,

I am researching the 1/5th Battalion Lincolnshire Regiment which were in the same brigade (138th) as the 1/4th Leicesters and indeed for much of the time that you are interested in they alternated trench tours with each other.

The book that Martin mentions states that the Leicesters came out of the trenches on the night of the 10th and were:

'...bivouaced close to the White Chateau at Kruisstraat, gulping down hot tea and rum out of enamelled mugs before lying down to sleep just as the sun rose.'

As Martin says the 'Huts at Ourderdom' would have probably been their next port of call. The 'Footprints of the Fourth' is a brief but interestingly written account, which is quite different (in my opinion) from the usual battalion history.

As an indication of its brevity, on the same page as the quotation above it states:

'August passed and September came.'

Reading between the lines it does suggest that more 'stuff' was flying about than previously during their next tours, and lot of extra work had to be put in by fatigue parties.

The whole division suffered devastating losses at the Hohenzollern Redoubt in October of the same year. The 1/5th Lincolns war diary is really quite detailled up until this point. Many of the other ranks that are killed and wounded before the Hohenzollern are mentioned by name. The Adjutant (who compiled the diary) unfortunately lost his life at the Hohenzollern, and after this the diary reverts to how Martin descibes, far less personalised.

Regards,

Steve.

[Guest clairek]

A big thanks to Steve and Martin for the replies, it is much appreciated.

Regards

Claire