On the HQ situation maps it looked to the commanders as though the previous day an advantage had been gained that should be pressed. The general reserve would be used, and this included the 10th Battalion York and Lancs.

21st & 24th to be used War Diary of 10th York & Lancs Map of 10th Battn. line Lance Corporal James Dillon killed Map of 21st Divn. area Diary entry, 8th Somerset Light Infantry Diary entry, 8th Lincolnshire’s Call it a day Private Harvey, V.C.

At the end of the first day the men on the field were exhausted, many of the officers and NCO’s were dead, one sixth of  the force were casualties, there was insufficient artillery and much of the German wire was still unbroken.  However, the decision was taken that the attack would be pressed forward on the second day and for this the general reserve would be brought forward; this consisted of two raw divisions (the 21st & 24th), the Guards Division and the cavalry. When the army had expanded after the start of the war it was naturally filled with men from all walks of life, many with inadequate training and that was often with practice equipment rather than the real thing. The officers too came to the front with limited training, and some of that inexperience would show as the 21st and 24th divisions moved to their positions. There is a comment in the War Diary of the 12th West Yorkshire when they took up their position on the morning of the 26th; “The battalion was facing N.E., the sun could not be seen, and no-one thought of taking out a compass, being altogether under the impression that they were facing East.”

But they were young men and they ‘led from the front’. Philip Warner wrote of them; “...officers had minimal training. Their sole virtue was the courage and dedication which enabled them to lead a platoon over the top of the trench into deadly machine-gun fire.  .......it would be wrong to minimize the influence of the young, unfledged, doomed officers.”

All the Ist and IVth Corps reserves had been used in the battle on day one, and whilst the general reserve had the Guards Division, as well as the 21st & 24th, the Guards would be kept as ‘last resort’, so the 21st & 24th, in spite of their rawness would have to help win the day. The plan was for them to attack at 11.00 on the 26th, go through the German second line, which was considered to be weak, and on to the Haute-Deule Canal. The cavalry would then pass through and on to the Flanders Plain.  That was the plan.  As general reserve these divisions were under the direct control of Sir John French and he had promised that the 21st and 24th divisions would not be called on “unless and until the Germans were absolutely smashed and retiring in disorder”.   However, Haig needed them and the Germans were not retiring in disorder but French decided that the reports of the First Army having broken the German line were sufficient cause to allow him to release them to Haig.  When the battle started though, these reserves were not close to the battlefield as one would want, they were some miles back and so would need to route-march forward. The battalion history of 10th York and Lancs says that they were “some eight miles from the new front” when they were ordered forward.  The HQ staffs believed that the German second line was weak, but they had not allowed for the determination of the enemy, who had brought forward some seven divisions to strengthen that line with men, machine-guns and new uncut wire. The Germans now reoccupied the many small quarries, mine workings and the Bois Hugo that they had evacuated on the 25th, with the benefit of hindsight if the reserves had been brought up on the first day, these positions may well have been easily occupied by the British, as it was they allowed the enemy to give the new divisions a harsh introduction to the war.

On the first day there had been an artillery bombardment for some four days and the exit of the troops from the trenches had been covered by the release of gas and smoke, it would be different for the new troops on day two.  There was insufficient artillery to give any useful barrage, no smoke and no gas, and they were to advance over the open ground of No Man’s Land. The start point for the attack would be the captured German trenches, many of them with pockets of gas still remaining from the previous day, and many with the corpses of the previous occupants still there. This was the first time many of the new troops would have seen dead men, and now they had to take their turn and go over the top. Mention has been made of the lack of experience of the officers, and it had some repercussions as the new units went into the line.  There was a deal of confusion as they tried to map read their way on poor maps and the divisional artillery found itself positioned about a half mile in front of its intended position. As the morning fog cleared they found themselves overlooked by the Germans, and shelled by the German artillery. Philip Warner has an eyewitness account of the arrival of the new divisions; “We also saw some stragglers from the hapless 21st and 24th divisions who had been marching all night from their billets miles behind the front line.  They were only partly trained troops, had never been under fire before, and had no food for many hours.  They were, of course, demoralised - poor devils.”

The 21st and 24th Divisions were planned to attack on a front between Bois Hugo and Hulluch, and carry on through to the canal, at the same time attacks would continue against Hill 70 in the south and the area around the Hohenzollern in the north.

The map above, from the IWM trench map CD shows the area over which the 21st and 24th divisions would attack. Just below the ‘X’ is Chalk Pit Wood with Chalk Pit Quarry at its NE corner. Bois Hugo and Hill 70 are also marked

The following is from the 10th Battalion War Diary, and covers their part in the attack; “On arrival at the north corner of Loos road received orders to proceed as fast as possible to Point 69.E. of the Loos Haines road (I believe that is just to the left of the blue ‘69’ on the map above), the Battalion to form the reserve with the 12th West York in an attack on the Hulluch-Lens Road. This was carried out until the leading battalions - the Lincolns and Somersets - had crossed the Hulluch-Lens road, when we were ordered to move more to the north and take up an entrenched position on the Hulluch-Lens road, facing east; the line when taken up extended from the Red House by the Chalk Pit east of Square Wood to the junction of roads at point H. 19. C. S. 9.

In WO 95/2157 the 63 Brigade diary there is a handwritten message from 10 Y&L yo 63 Bde; “Y&L Regt has dug down and now has good cover along the road running N. from Red House for six or seven hundred yards.  Three Coys. in front line.  One Coy. 150 yds in rear AAA Trenches face almost E.”  [Note the AAA in a message means ‘full stop’. J Dillon]

[Ibelieve the map below shows the line described.  The ‘Red House’ is shown as a red square below, I got this position from a hand drawn map in the diary of the 12th West Yorkshire Regt. I think the position ‘C.S.9. should be a ‘5’ and not an ‘S’]

On arrival reported to the Brigadier.  persistent sniping from direction of Hill 70 and Square Wood.  About 8.30 a.m. a verbal order came for two companies to attack Square Wood.  ‘B’ and ‘C’ were detailed and I took these two companies forward.  The other two fell back on the Hulluch-Lens road, and as we were hard pressed in Square Wood, ‘A’ was sent up to reinforce. As the other side of the wood was reached a very heavy machine-gun fire from concealed positions drove us back while the attack was being made, ‘D’ Company took up the original position on the Hulluch-Lens road with its right resting on the Red House by the Chalk Pit and eventually linked up with the 8th Somerset L.I.

The three companies driven out of Square Wood fell back on the southern road Loos-Hulluch, and rallied there, together with a number of the Scotch Brigade. During this attack through the wood ‘C’ Company lost all its officers. After the sunken road was held for some time, it was seen that the position was untenable as guns placed north-east of Benifontaine raked this road, and reports received were that the Germans were there in force.  It was considered that the line should move back to the southernmost German trenches, [this may be the pull back referred to by Maj. Howard of the 8 Somerset L.I. ] and in this retirement, as no reports were received, we had no means of communicating with the troops on the left, and the retirement was commenced under very heavy machine-gun and shell fire. While this movement was taking place an officer of the divisional staff suggested rallying on a line parallel to a track running north-east, and I took charge of this which consisted of cover for this line, and other lines were formed in rear.  After the first line had been passed through, our line advanced and eventually became part of the firing line with Square Wood as its objective. This attack met with strong opposition from machine-gun fire from concealed positions.

Another rally was made in the sunken road, southern Hulluch-Loos road, and this was eventually evacuated as in the preceding case.  By this time the Battalion had lost a good many officers and men. This was repeated four times during the course of the afternoon, but it was impossible for the troops to get beyond a line drawn north-east from the second ‘O’ in the word ‘Loos’ on the map; the machine-gun fire was too powerful and the men were very exhausted.  After the fourth attempt it was seen that a general retirement as far back as the German trenches was taking place, so I collected men of the 63rd Brigade and put them in trenches north-east of the road.”

While going through the War Diary for the 10th York & Lancs I noticed a note referring to the bravery of a couple of Private soldiers, Binns and Farimond. “When Lt. P.L. Smith was wounded, on stretcher bearers refusing to carry stretcher owing to heavy shell fire Private Binns and another private (since killed) volunteered to carry Lt. Smith in.  On the Private above being killed Pte. Farimond volunteered to take his place and with Pte. Binns brought Lt. Smith in across an area swept by rifle, machine gun and shell fire.”

Unfortunately this act of bravery was not necessary, in the casualty returns for the day Lt. Smith is listed as ‘killed’. Also later in the diary I saw that Private Binns was himself ‘killed in action’ on the 1st December 1915.

Also killed this day was Lance Corporal 13579 James Dillon of the 10th York & Lancs. James was the husband of Amy Dillon, he had one child and he was 30 years old. I found his details in the PRO.  His widow was awarded a pension of 15/- (old shillings for those who remember pre-decimilization) for herself and the child.  Not much for a life.  He has no known grave but is remembered on the Loos Memorial. I am not aware that he was a relative of my grandfather, but he came from Owlerton in Sheffield, as did my grandfather and my father. It is quite possible that they knew each other as there was a strong Irish community there, the name ‘Dillon’ is Irish (as is my grandfather’s christian name, Patrick).  Since originally writing this I now believe I may be related to him and have given more details on a separate page.

Junior Officers and Privates were not the only ranks to be killed, senior officers were also part of the toll at Loos, indeed; Major General Capper died on the 27th, Brigadier General Nickalls on the 26th, Major General Thesiger on the 27th and Major General Wing on the 2nd October. This led GHQ to issue a warning; “Three divisional commanders have been killed in action during the past week. These are losses which the army can ill afford, and the Field Marshal Commanding in Chief desires to draw attention to the necissity of guarding against a tendency by senior officers such as Corps and Division Commanders to take up positions too far forward when fighting is in progress.”

The area in which 21st Division were fighting.

On the left of the 10th York & Lancs was the 8th Battalion, Somerset Light Infantry and the following is Major Howard’s entry in their War Diary, starting from the 25th September.

“I started about 7.30 p.m. [for the Hulluch-Lens road] and about 9.45 stopped to make the men fill their water bottles.  Reached road about 3.30 a.m. on 26/9.” Howard had five platoons on the Hulluch-Lens Road and three platoons in the Chalk Pits.  They spent the remainder of the night digging in.  At 8.20 he was ordered to advance on ANNAY, [I cannot find this place on the trench maps] but at about this time a counter attack started on his right.

“Captain Rose (a Staff Captain).....asked me to send a messenger to the York and Lancaster who were on my right in front of wood H25a [I can only relate this to the wood just below the crossroads in the map showing the York & Lancs line] and tell them to send a company back to the trenches they had vacated along the Hulluch-Lens road H19c. Nobody volunteered to go so I went myself and finding no officer in capable control I ordered about one hundred men back to their trenches and saw them safely in position there H19c.

At about 10.15 the Germans began to show their hand......the York and Lancs on my right had already retreated owing to the intensity of the enemy shell fire, so I drew in my right flank and made a redoubt of the Chalk Pits.  The enemy then concentrated their fire on my position but still without great effect.

About 1 p.m. the attacking brigade retired and at 1.15 p.m. Major Macdonald ordered me to retire because the attacking brigade in its retirement had left both my flanks clear and because I had no ammunition left.

The map on the left is not from the Trench Map CD, but from a copy of another map sold by the Imperial War Museum.  This one has the trenches corrected for 25th August 1915.  The Chalk Pit can be seen at the top with the trenches around Hill 70 at the bottom.

Mention has been made previously of the inexperience of the officers with the maps they were given and in the examples above, from the War Diaries of the two different regiments, the York and Lancs officer refers to a wood as ‘Square Wood’, yet there is no mention of that on the maps, nor by the Somerset L.I. officer. The latter uses map references for everything, though still limiting himself to referring to squares rather then the more detailed letters for squares with 4 digits to give the position within the square.  It makes it difficult to relate positions in the different reports.

While the 10th York & Lancs and the 8th Somerset L.I. were having their troubles around the Chalk Pits the 8th Lincolns, also in 63 Brigade, were one of the units assaulting Hill 70.  15 Division, reinforced by 21 Division, had been ordered to attack this strongpoint, although elements of 15th Division did take some trenches on the hill, by the end of the morning the Germans had retaken them all. The following is a report from the 8th Lincoln’s War Diary, it was written by two Company Sergeant Majors “on the ground that all the officers of this unit who went into action on the 25 - 27 became casualties”.

“The advance was to commence at 11 a.m.  In the meantime we were under heavy shell and rifle fire.  We then advanced meeting great numbers of the enemy.  A short retirement took place the Battalion making a new line of men composed of various units about 400 yards in rear of our first position.  We again advanced under the command of the nearest officer. By this time a great number of our officers had become casualties.  The men continued to fight with units to which they had become attached.  On the 27th the Regiment was relieved by a unit of Guards.”

This was a short, hand written report which plays down what must have been a pretty dreadful experience against the guns on Hill 70, as well as playing down the role of the NCO’s in holding these units together under fire when all their officers had been taken out of action.

As a little ‘aside’, I took down a note from the 8th Lincoln diary that linked them with the 10th York & Lancs. “Lt. Col. Wilson commanding the 8th Lincoln was wounded in November ‘15 and Major Taylor of the 10th York & Lancs was appointed to the temporary command of the battalion. Maj. Taylor reported his arrival at battalion headquarters in Armentiers and proceeding to his own billet for necessary kit was wounded en route by a fragment from a shell.  His tenure of command was a record for shortness being only about a quarter of an hour.”

At midday on the 26th the 1st Division made an attempt to capture Hulluch, but lost huge numbers of men in trying to cross some 500 yards of open ground under machine-gun fire.  All along the line the planned attacks for the day had failed and Haig had only one reserve unit left, the Guards Division. The orders for the Guards to go forward reached them late and it was the back end of the afternoon before they reached the trenches around Loos.  The Guards were now to be used on the 27th to try to restore the situation, and particularly take control of the Chalk Pits, Chalk Pit wood and Hill 70.  The 2nd Guards Brigade would have the Chalk Pit and wood as their objective while the 3rd Brigade would attack Hill 70.  Chalk Pit wood and the Chalk Pit were taken but the Germans on Hill 70 could not be moved by the 3rd Brigade.

One of those to die on the 26th September was Lance Corporal John Young Brown of ‘C’ Company, 6th Cameron Highlanders in 15th Division. I mention him because in the Times Newspaper for 21st October 2004 there was an article about him.  He died on his 20th birthday having been shot and bayoneted in the battle of Loos, quite possibly in the action that took place at the western edge of Chalet Wood. He was remembered on the Loos memorial as his body had not been found.  However, in 2001 some construction workers unearthed a body while building a new road and he was identified as J Y Brown by his regimental cap badge and Post Office pen found with his bones. He was buried in Loos Cemetery on the 20th October 2004, with a military send-off by 30 men from the unit that has succeeded his own in all the changes the army has undergone, the 1st Battalion The Highlanders. His two nieces and his great-niece were there as well.

Victoria Cross.

On the 28th September Private Samuel Harvey of the 1st Battalion won the V.C. for his action at the Hohenzollern Redoubt; When his unit’s trenches came under heavy bombardment and were blocked by casualties, he volunteered to dash backwards and forwards across open ground and under intense fire to bring up 30 boxes of shells before he fell wounded in the head. He was gazetted on the 18th November and part of the citation said; “ .. it was mainly due to Private Harvey’s cool bravery in supplying bombs that the enemy was eventually driven back.”

Unfortunately after the war he fell on hard times and when he died he was buried in an unmarked pauper’s grave in Ipswich.   The Western Front Association raised money for a headstone and on the 29 September 2000, 40 years after he died, there was a ceremony to remember him.

At 7 a.m. on the 27th the 21st Division was relieved in the front and bivouacked half a mile to the north-west of Novelles-les-Vermelles, remaining there until the next evening, when the battalion went into billets at Rely.  This had been the 10th Battalion’s first action in the war, their casualties were 14 officers and 306 other ranks, the division had lost 4051 officers and men.  At the same time the 24th were attacking and being beaten back on their front, as with the 21st they suffered terribly with 4178 casualties before the German wire.

Using again the diary of Lance Corporal Jimmy Carpenter, quoted in edition 73 of “Stand To”; I have not tried to describe anything in the way of a brilliant victory only the plain facts of what in my opinion was a huge muddle. .... After leaving the battlefield I saw none of my own regiment until I reached the Vermelles road. There I found a few weary souls looking the picture of despair and in a very tattered and filthy condition.  We made up a party and dragged ourselves along the Bethune road not knowing where we were going and not caring so long as we left that horrible slaughter field behind. ... The roll was called about 6 pm. Only 150 men answered their names. [earlier in the diary he said that 1,100 of them had gone into action.]

By this time the Head Quarters staffs realized that the men had done all they could, but the objectives of the battle had not been met. The British now had no reserves and had to withdraw the units who had recently been fighting.  The French also had stalled in their assault in front of Vimy Ridge but they did agree to extend their line to the north to take over some of the British line around the Double Crassier and Loos.  Officially the Battle of Loos ended on the 8th October, gains were made, the front line had been moved forward, though at great loss (some 60,000) and their had been no cavalry breakthrough to the Flanders Plain.

Following the battle would come the post-mortems and the benefit of hindsight, often to the disadvantage of military commanders, and this time it would be Sir John French who would come in for criticism, especially from his subordinate, General Haig.

The dead men lay on the shell-scarred plain, Where death and the autumn held their reign - Like banded ghosts in the heavens grey The smoke of the conflict died away. The boys whom I knew and loved were dead, Where war’s grim annals were writ in red,        In the town of Loos in the morning.