LOO's -Kent's First day of the Somme

I can see you all sitting there scratching your heads over the title. What's the silly sod writing I hear you cry. Simple says I. I'm just correcting an injustice that has been perpetuated down the years. It is a generally held belief that the Kitchener New Army made it's debut and was wiped out on the first day of the Somme. On that day it was only the North that suffered with telegram boy's working there way up and down the streets of back to back houses. That is true. But the South didn't get it that easy. Our New Army divisions were wiped out at Loo's -a good 7 months earlier, with casualty figures that rivalled the worst of the first day of the Somme. In this rural part of the world telegram boys didn't go up streets, they cycled into little farming communities delivering two or three letters, in terms of proportion to these rural communities it was every bit a disaster. It never ceases to amaze me that these pathetically small hamlets have memorials with lists and lists of names on it. - Yes the Souths Kitchener Armies suffered but in a much earlier battle. The same could apply to the Scot's, who's Kitchener battalions were also wiped out at LOOS. Hence my feeling of injustice, it happened to us too, only much earlier.

I will concentrate on the East Kent Regiment. There were initially three kitchener battalions, the 6th went into the 12th Division, the 7th in to the 18th Division and the 8th which went into the 24th Division. The 18th Division was not committed at Loo's, it was allowed to train under Ivor Maxse and was first committed on 1st July 1916 after a year in France, this became a brilliant division, ?? how much of it was due to the fact that they were not wiped out within months of arrival in France and were allowed to train. The 12th and 24th Divisions were committed to the offensive at Loo's and with it the 2 battalions of the Buff's, the Kent connection continues as with them there was a battalion of the West Kents who's fate was identical. Let's look at the story of the two units.

8th Battalion East Kent Regt.

The Battalion arrived in France on 1st September 1915. After 2 days in Boulogne they went to Etaples for Divisional training and from there on the 21st September to the Concentration area for the battle of Loo's. They marched to Bethune on the 25th September and were told to move t