The 1917 battle when Bolton lost hundreds of its sons

"Finding research about Bolton in the First World War was very difficult, and I was saddened to feel that the contribution of the town was being forgotten and overlooked.," he writes. "I've still never found a published account of anyone from a Bolton unit in any history book. There are two reasons for this: firstly, there were no units present at decisive points of important battles, and secondly, there are simply no letters, photographs or diaries from Bolton units available in archives - the regimental war diaries exist, but they are rather dry and informal."

At the end of his article, Mr Morlidge suggests that anyone who has First World War memories or other material should contact Bolton Museum where it is hoped that memories and experiences of Bolton people can be recorded, not only for future generations to study, but also as a tribute to those who gave their lives in the mud and trenches.

SATURDAY, October 26, will be the 85th anniversary of the bloodiest day of the First World War for the town of Bolton. Hundreds of men from the town would become casualties of the butchery in the mud of the Second Battle of Passchendaele.

Very few of these men were professional soldiers. Mill workers and shop assistants, clerks and railwaymen, buoyed up by the heady patriotism of the first months of the war, left the same streets we now live in to fight for their country.

In the flag waving, carnival atmosphere that marked their leaving, few could imagine the horrors that awaited them in the blood-soaked morass of the Western Front. Some joined up from a sense of adventure, some because their mates had joined up and they didn't want to be left behind, some to escape the misery of unemployment.

Mills, factories, churches, schools, and shops all over Bolton cheered as their workmates left to start their training in Kent. Many of them would never return.

Men who had never before left the smoky atmosphere of Bolton suddenly found themselves living outdoor lives in the Kentish hop fields. Regular exercise and meals brought the men to a peak of physical fitness. Route marches, drill and shooting practice helped mould this assortment of keen amateurs filled with patriotic pride into a professional fighting force.

By early 1917, the 2/5th and 4/5th Battalions of the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment were ready, and on February 9 they landed in France, leaving thousands of families and friends back in Bolton to anxiously wait for news of their loved ones in heavily censored letters or the casualty columns of the local papers.

The exhausted British army had been fighting in the Ypres salient since the end of July, and as casualties mounted and the incessant rain turned the low-lying ground into a quagmire they were literally becoming bogged down. On the morning of October 26, 1917, the two Bolton battalions were occupying front line trenches two miles north-east of the Belgian village of Poellcappelle, ready to try and capture German positions that had hardly moved for years.

Despite eight months' training in France and several tours in the front line, nothing could have prepared them for the hell of the next few hours. Tired, wet, hungry and standing in a line of shell holes with mud like quicksand often up to their waists, they waited for zero hour at 5.40am. When the whistles blew, they advanced slowly and steadily towards the German lines. What must have been going through their minds as they advanced through this terrible landscape -- to suffer horrific wounds, or to drown in the liquid mud before rescue could get to you?

Within 50 yards the German machine guns started firing and men began to fall. Friends were there one second and gone the next. German shells began to fall among them and they were easy targets for German aeroplanes. Within minutes all the officers of the 2/5th had become casualties, and without the leaders they had followed for years the attack began to falter. The 4/5th beat off a German counter attack but could not advance against the German pill boxes, intact despite heavy British shelling. Signallers were sniped when they stood up to use their flags and communications soon broke down. The British attack ground to a halt and men scrambled to find what little cover they could in the waterlogged shell holes.

The battle was a complete failure, and by 9pm that evening the remains of the Bolton battalions were withdrawn to their original start line. They had to be withdrawn from the line that night and sent away to be re-clothed and re-organised. The first (and, for the 4/5th battalion, the only) battle of the war had left 13 officers and 173 men from the two battalions officially listed as killed, with many hundreds more wounded.

Many of the bodies were never found as they had been consumed by the sucking mud, and their only memorial is the Tyne Cot Memorial to the missing, along with nearly 35,000 others whose bodies were also lost.

Hundreds of Bolton men had trained for three years for this day, and seen their lives and hopes shattered in a few short minutes. Histories of the battle never mention this sacrifice as the attack is just one of a whole series of confused and pointless failures in an awful and costly battle. To many Bolton families however, it was the awful day they lost their fathers, brothers, sons, or friends, and was the blackest day in the history of our town during the Great War.

Few of the people affected by the war are still alive today, but the memory of the sacrifices made by the whole community deserves to be remembered.

To this end, Sean Baggaley, Keeper of Social History at Bolton Museum, is trying to create an archive of material relating to the First World War, so that memories of the experiences of people from Bolton can be recorded. You can contact him at the Central Library on 01204 332213.