This Remembrance Sunday at 11am please remember the 1,000 West Ham Pals killed in the first world war.
The West Ham Pals were officially called the 13th Battalion of the Essex Regiment. Unofficially they were West Ham football team supporters who joined on mass with their mates and whose battle cry (and bayonet charge) was “Up the Irons”.
The impact of all these deaths and casualties in battle on the local community was therefore immense. About one quarter of the original battalion volunteers were killed and nearly half were returned to UK with severe injuries
This poster on the right was issued to help recruit for the Reserve Company of the West Ham Battalion. Formed at Brentwood in September 1915 they undertook their training in Cambridge and after a few men were initially sent as replacements to those men who had been killed in
Sergeant Laurie Legg MM (right) was an Original volunteer to the West Ham Battalion. Born in Leytonstone and growing up in Wathamstow, he lived at home with four sisters in Forest Road
The West Ham Pals website can be found here