27 December

Lonsdale Battalion events that took place on 27 December.
For events that took place elsewhere, see our sister project The Great War On This Day

1915 (Monday)

Bouzincourt: Battalion relieves the 17th Highland Light Infantry in the F1 Sector; involved in repairing trenches and construction of dug-outs.
Major P.G.W. Diggle, 2nd in Command of Battalion: "For the first six months there was never a night that the C.O. did not go round the trenches. Not a casual walk round, but four or fives hours out. I took the other part of the night. But he was a man of 53, and then he did not sleep in the day. Breakfast was always at 8 a.m. We had the name of being the best Infantry Battalion in France, among any of those who had to do with us. One man told me here in England, only the other day, what a reputation we had. The C.O. put system and organization into everything he came in contact with. We organized a drainage party, whose job it was to keep the communication trenches drained and in repair, under the supervision of the R.E. The garrison was responsible for the front line only. The C.O. put protection first, then rest, and then work." ^[1]

Battalion situated at Puchevillers, parading under Commanding Officer for drill.
Company training and Battalion bombing and Lewis gun classes.
Accident on bombing ground. 2nd Lieut. Rankin (Acting Bombing Officer) and 5 other ranks are all slightly wounded.

Sources: Various sources contemporary to the war have been used to compile the Lonsdale Battalion on this day... (hover to read more)

Various sources contemporary to the war have been used to compile The Lonsdale Battalion On This Day. The majority of the events shown on this day (27 December), including any supplementary notes, enlistments and statistical data etc., have been primarily sourced from the Lonsdale Battalion War Diary (November 1915 to June 1918), Record of the XIth (Service) Battalion (Lonsdale) and abridged material from Timeline and Chronology of the Lonsdale Battalion (September 1914 - May 1915), which are sourced from the original DLONS/L/13/13 Lowther Estate Archives. Events from that chronology are reproduced here with kind permission of Jim Lowther (2016). They are identified and referenced separately by their unique DLONS numbers. Please do not publish these events without prior permission from the Lowther Estate. All casualty names, numbers, ranks, date of deaths and places of burial/commemoration have been sourced from Soldiers Died in the Great War 1914-19, Volume 39, The Border Regiment and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission database respectively.