Over the next few days I'm going to commemorate men killed during the Battle of Loos in 1915. Today, 25th September 2009, is the 94th anniversary of that battle; a battle which would see regular soldiers, Territorial Force soldiers and Kitchener volunteers fighting - with mixed fortunes - side by side.
15229 Pte Tague Dolan of the 8th Battalion, King's Own Scottish Borderers was one of 139 8th KOSB men to die on 25th September 1915; a day which - according to Soldiers Died in the Great War - claimed the lives of 9,661 British soldiers, or the equivalent of nearly ten infantry battalions.
Tague Dolan was a Kitchener volunteer who was born in Glasgow, was living there when war was declared and who enlisted there too. His army number indicates that he joined the 8th KOSB in September 1914 and as such, he would have been one of the original 8th Battalion members.
Tague's medal index card indicates that he arrived in France on 10th July 1915 and he was missing, presumed dead on the 25th September 1915. He has no known grave and is commemorated on the Loos Memorial.
I interviewed a number of Loos veterans in the 1980s and you can read the interviews, or extracts of interviews with Corporal Bill Howell (8th London Regiment) and Bombardier Len Gifford (Royal Horse Artillery) on my World War 1 Veterans blog.
Arthur Reeve was an old soldier who'd originally enlisted with the Royal Lancaster Regiment at Manchester in 1894. By the time the First World War was declared he had served his seven years with the Colours and five on the Reserve, but this did not stop him from enlisting with the KOSB Special Reserve in September 1914. Pretty soon, he found himself posted to the 8th Battalion where, as an old hand, his experience must have been invaluable. Arthur was wounded on the 25th September 1915 and you can read more about him and the 8th KOSB on my Chailey 1914-1918 website. Arthur Reeve's story is HERE, Loos Preliminaries are HERE, and the Battle of Loos is HERE. The 8th KOSB sustained nearly 400 casualties - killed, wounded and missing - on the first day alone.
The illustration on this post - a million miles from the battlefields of the Western Front - was executed by Sergeant Reeve whilst he was recuperating from his Loos wounds at Chailey. It depicts nearby Newick church.
At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, WE WILL REMEMBER THEM.
Sources:
Ancestry.co.uk (MIC)
Army Ancestry
Army Service Numbers 1881-1918
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
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