Overview

Andrew Jackson's new history tells the story of the Great War as it was experienced by the men of the 11th Battalion, East Lancashire Regiment (Accrington Pals), the 158th (Accrington and Burnley) Brigade, Royal Field Artillery (Howitzers) and their families. Using information gathered from years of painstaking research in national and local archives and in private collections, he reconstructs, in vivid detail, the role played by these men on the Western Front. His book, which draws extensively on diaries, memoirs and letters, follows both infantry and artillerymen into the British army's bloodiest battles of the war, giving a graphic close-up view of their experiences. It is a moving record of the wartime service of a select group of local men during a time of unprecedented conflict. b/w plate section

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9781848844698

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Reviews

I though this was likely to be a good book when I saw the name of the author. Andrew Jackson has, for many years, operated a website about the Accrington Pals, the 11th (Service) Battalion of the East Lancashire Regiment. It is a model of clarity and good research, and unlike many of the other works on this unit covers all of the pals story and not just the dreadful day of 1 July 1916. For any aspiring researcher of a unit, a battle or a war memorial, you would profit from looking at Jackson's work as a standard to be achieved. The book is well written and engaging, taking us from pre-war days and providing non-Lancastrians with a good idea of the area and life there in 1914, through the days of enlistment and training and out into the theatre of war. In a sense, the climax comes early as the Accrington Pals went into action at Serre on the first day of the Somme, and suffered terribly heavy losses. Things were never quite the same again for the battalion but Jackson reveals that the local nature of the battalion remained for much of the war. The experience of the artillery brigade, a howitzer unit, was inevitably different but it too had its tragedies and triumphs and all are covered here. Excellent. The Long Long Trail

Author Information

Andrew Jackson was born and raised in Accrington and he has been fascinated by the story of the Accrington Pals since first visiting the battlefields of the Western Front in 1972, accompanied by Harry Bloor, one of the Pals who went over the top on 1 July 1916. He began researching the history of the Pals in 1980 and has been accumulating information about them ever since. He is the creator of the Accrington Pals website (www.pals.org.uk). From its inception in 1997, the website has grown to more than 280 pages. He has also created the one of the best Peninsular War websites: www.peninsularwar.org

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