29 November

Lonsdale Battalion events that took place on 29 November.
For events that took place elsewhere, see our sister project The Great War On This Day

1914 (Sunday)

Lt-Col. Machell to Lord Lonsdale: "yesterday the Lonsdales beat the 'Carlisle United' F.C. by 2 goals to 0 – a fine match, far the best yet. The weather is awful & there is a lot of mild sort of influenza – in fact it is just a matter of 'how bad' everyone is, but it will do us all good. I have got all up from the Stables now except those who actually mess in the Pavilion, & hope to get the Kendal Company in the new huts by Xmas. There has been a muddle about the greatcoats which are now urgently required – the Committee appear not to have made a proper contract, so has been at the mercy of the contractor....Your belts are a godsend, & the rugs." ^[1]

Battalion is situated in billets at Villers-Bocage and trains in close order drill.

Battalion is located at Berteaucourt involved in General parades of instruction & training.
L/Sgt. J.W. Oglethorpe writes to his parents from a home hospital: "I got wounded on the 18th in an advance we made. I got shot through the left arm, and have lost the use of it, and I have trench feet and cannot walk; but the worst of it all is that I got hit on Saturday night and was in a shell hole until Wednesday. I was 4 days and 3 nights without food and water. I only had half a bottle of water, so you will know what I suffered. I got to England on the 25th, and am going on all right now." ^[2]

Battalion situated at Hill Top Farm preparing battle stores and equipment.
Enemy shells the camp with 4.2 shrapnel from 7am – 8.30am at a rate of 6 shells a minute. 2 other ranks are wounded.
Derwent Milburn (24003) of Keswick dies of wounds, 21 years of age.^[a]

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 (29 November), 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.