TODAY, Armistice Day, we remember those who served and lost their lives in all conflicts.
In the First World War, there was barely a street in Bradford that didn’t lose a young man. On August 5, 1914, hours after the King declared war, Territorials of the West Yorkshire Regiment reported for duty at Belle Vue Barracks in Manningham. A month later Bradford Mechanics Institute was “besieged” by hundreds of young men eager to join up.
A Citizens’ Army League had been inaugurated in response to Lord Kitchener’s call for more men. In Bradford a committee was formed to support the new ‘Pals Battalion’, comprising friends and colleagues serving shoulder to shoulder.
Men who grew up together, went to school and worked together fought in a war expected to be over by Christmas. Many went over the top together, and died within minutes of each other.
This poignant photograph is of surviving Bradford Pals in 1974.
Who knew what nightmares haunted them?
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