LEEDS PALS: A History of the 15th Battalion (1st Leeds)

The "Leeds Pals", as the 15th battalion of the Prince of Wales's Regiment was known, was one of many local battalions who went into action in World War I with no inkling of the horror that awaited them. As these eyewitness testimonies report again and again, they went over the top, or "over the lid" as the Yorkshire lads called it, without flinching or showing their fear. The Leeds Pals were effectively wiped out four times between 1915 and 1917. Identifying the group was not easy, as some of those who volunteered at Leeds Town Hall in September 1914 went to train at the Pals' base in Colsterdale but others were sent to Egypt or became trainers. A particularly successful recruiting operation followed the Leeds City football club's match with Fulham, at the end of which an appeal from the Lord Mayor yielded 149 recruits. The training at Closterdale developed the camaraderie essential to the life and death situations of war. Of those who went over the top on the first day of the Somme, only a small number survived. A plan of the battle shows the Leeds Pals on the front line, backed up by the Bradford and Durham Pals. Before the battle the men held a party that was "like gala night in Roundhay Park", though "we missed the Yorkshire lasses". Private Clifford Hollingsworth, later a POW, described how the night before the attack a lad called Henderson accidentally blew up a grenade he was priming. Arthur Hollins paid tribute to his platoon commander Tom Willey, who "gave the order 'Get ready, 13', as casually as on an ordinary parade". Willey was lost in the ensuing assault, and Hollings reported that "he was a Leeds lad and we're proud of him". Hollings himself succumbed to pneumonia in 1917, and the letter informing his parents is reproduced in facsimile here. Among the many moving archives are some detailing equivalent German forces and announcements. On 1 July 1931 a memorial was unveiled in Leeds parish church, and the author interviews relatives of the dead men. 410pp, roll of honour, awards, illus on most pages.