Raising of a Battalion

The 11th (Lewisham) Battalion of the Royal West Kent Regiment was raised in the Spring of 1915 by the Mayor of Lewisham, one Robert Jackson. A "Pals" battalion raised primarily from the men of South London and North West Kent, it went on to fight it's way through the fields of France and Flanders during the Great War of 1914-1918.
After a brief sojourn in Italy during the winter of 1917/1918 the battalion was disbanded in March 1918 due to the restructuring of the British Army.
The Somme, Messines Ridge, 3rd Ypres or Passchendaele as it's now known were amongst some of the bloodiest battles of the Great War that the battalion was involved in yet the men who fought, died or returned home to civillian life with their experiences and in may cases wounds, their tale is forgotten.

This is the story of the officers and men, of which there was over 3000 who passed through the ranks, and the events that they lived through that shaped our world today.