23 March

Lonsdale Battalion events that took place on 23 March.

1915

• General Equipment Indent: 2000 dummy cartridges.

1916

• 17th Highland Light Infantry relieves the Lonsdales in the E1 sector near Hénencourt.
• Battalion billets in Dernancourt leaving one company as garrison at Becourt Wood Defences.
• “Last night a beastly rifle grenade fell in the middle of a party of our men who were putting out wire. Pitch dark night and a chance shot, as they had no idea anyone was out. It got five. One of my best Sergeants killed dead and another so badly hurt that he died before we could get him back over our parapet. Both personal friends. Harrison, the Captain, is splendid. I was anxious not to have anyone outside, and with another man was laboriously dragging in the Sergeant, when he, Harrison, took him on his back and walked in with him....We have been extremely ‘fortunate’, and I believe we are supposed to have done very well all along....so if anything goes wrong at any time we shall have something to our credit in the past.” – Lt-Col. P. W. Machell

1917

• Battalion situated at Nesle parades and marches to points west of Rouy, digging strong points there.

1918

• Battalion situated in Divisional Reserve along Canal Bank. Two Companies on range, one is bathing and another on working party duty.

References / notes

Material from Timeline/Chronology of the Lonsdale Battalion (September 1914 - May 1915) are sourced from the DLONS/L/13/13 Lowther Estate Archives. Entries from this timeline are reproduced here with kind permission of Jim Lowther and are not available under the license of this site. Please do not publish these extracts on other publicly visible media without prior permission from the copyright holder.