A Lancashire Fusilier's First World War

Norman Hall (d.o.b. 1892) was born and brought up in Bury. He enlisted as a private in Liverpool in September 1914, becoming an officer with the Lancashire Fusiliers about a month later. He went to France with the 2/5th Lancashire Fusiliers in May 1915, and served on the Western Front for most of the war, apart from two periods in Britain convalescing (he was seriously wounded in September 1916 and suffered a broken ankle at the end of July 1918).

He survived the war, and in early 1919 began to write an account of his experiences, the original manuscript of which (five chunky notebooks) is now available for research purposes in the Imperial War Museum in London. In November 2020 an edited version of the memoir was published by his granddaughter in order to make it more widely available and to raise money for charitable purposes, primarily Combat Stress.

The published version of the memoir focuses on the training of the 2/5th Lancashire Fusiliers in Britain (Bury, Southport and Bedford), their deployment in the trenches in France, and the Battle of the Somme in 1916. An Afterword summarises Norman’s later service with the 1/5th Lancashire Fusiliers in France and Belgium. It provides a fascinating insight into life as a soldier on the Western Front, covering topics such as the day to day routine, the evolution of the weapons, skirmishes in No Man’s Land, a gas attack by the British, the capture of a German prisoner, how time was spent when out of the trenches, and much, much more; sadly there are also some heart-achingly poignant accounts of the deaths of a number of Norman’s comrades in arms.

The book will have general appeal to all those interested in WW1. Many men who served on the Western Front would have recognised Norman’s experiences as being very similar to their own, even though the events that he narrates are specifically those in which the 51st Highland Division, the 55th (West Lancashire) Division and the 42nd (East Lancashire) Division participated.

The book will also be of interest to those researching any of their family members who happen to be mentioned by Norman. Over 400 individuals are indexed in the published version, mainly from Lancashire. The unedited original mentions many others. Tricia Rothwell has a complete transcript of the original, and, if any bona fide purchaser of the book requests it, she offers to spend half an hour or so checking to see whether there is any reference to a particular individual in the unpublished part of the memoir.

325 pages + index, including c.200 illustrations (maps, photographs, postcards etc.) many in colour.