The newly appointed Secretary of State for War, Earl Kitchener of Khartoum, issued his famous call to arms: 'Your King and Country Need You', urging the first 100,000 volunteers to come forward.

Simmons and Inglis obtained a number of local men who had been commissioned as officers after seeing service on the Western Front or at Gallipoli and others with previous TF experience.

Recruiting continued slow until December, when the government announced the introduction of conscription, and there was a late rush of men wishing to volunteer for a specific unit rather than be drafted.

Unfit personnel were withdrawn to second-line units, including Col Inglis who left to command the newly formed 33rd (Labour) Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, at Seaford but died on 30 March 1916, aged 53.

After the Armistice with Germany it was converted into a service battalion on 8 February 1919 and was then sent to join the British Army of the Rhine, where it was absorbed into 7th Bn, Middlesex Regiment, on 8 April.

Although the battalion was in divisional reserve, it had to supply working parties to improve the trenches near Ploegsteert Wood, and it began to suffer a trickle of casualties from chance shellfire or random machine gun fire.

On 23 August 10th Queen's entrained for Pont-Remy in the Somme sector, where it undertook three weeks' special training at Buigny-l'Abbé before being called upon to participate in the offensive, at the Battle of Flers-Courcelette.

Leaving a party to consolidate this line and to construct a strongpoint, 10th Queen's, 21st KRRC and the tanks moved on towards the second objective – 'Flers Trench' – closely followed by the two RF battalions.

The Earl of Feversham, CO of 21st KRRC, and Lt-Col Oakley of 10th Queen's now led parties of their men forward towards the third and fourth objectives, but casualties were heavy, particularly from enemy shellfire.

(Future Prime Minister Anthony Eden, at the time an officer in 21st KRRC, later claimed that this fruitless final attack had been due to Feversham receiving a 'deplorably vague' message from 41st Division.)

Major Jarvis had been wounded at about 14.00, and the adjutant, Lt Leslie Andrews, assumed command until Maj Clarke of the Royal Fusiliers arrived on the morning of 8 October to take over and lead the battalion back to Bécordel, east of Albert.

It involved the battalion's entire fighting strength of 17 officers and 525 ORs under the second-in-command, Maj Gwynne, along with a section of Royal Engineers (REs) and a party from an RE Tunnelling Company.

It was launched in the late afternoon of 24 February and within half an hour had penetrated to the German support line, where the engineers set about destroying the dugouts.

In the weeks before the battle units were withdrawn for careful rehearsals behind the lines, and leaders down to platoon level were taken to see a large model of the ridge constructed at Scherpenberg.

Meanwhile, working parties dug six lines of assembly trenches extending into No man's land, some as close as 150 yards (140 m) to the German sentry posts.

After a two-hour halt for reorganisation and further bombardment, the battalions advanced rapidly to the final Black Line objective and opened fire on German infantry and artillery retreating down the other side of the ridge.

The head of the battalion only reached the Red Line at 04.30, and the rear was heavily shelled coming up, A Company becoming so disorganised that only 50 men under 2nd Lt Parkes got as far as Battle Wood.

The battalion practised on marked-out trenches before moving up from Ridge Wood Camp on the misty night of 19/20 September to take up its positions undetected on tapes laid out in No man's land.

Major the Hon Eric Thesiger led the Surrey Yeomanry draft of 6 officers and 121 ORs and became the battalion's second-in-command under Lt-Col Hayley Bell, who had returned.

Here it reorganised, did spells in the coast defences, and provided large working parties for an RE tunnelling company and to repair the sandbagged trenches among the sand dunes.

The BEF was suffering a manpower crisis in early 1918, and each infantry brigade was reduced from four to three battalions, the surplus units being disbanded and drafted to provide reinforcements.

On the night of 7/8 April 10th Queen's took over a series of outposts on a frontage of 1,200 yards (1,100 m) forming the front line in the Passchendaele sector, at the head of the salient that had been captured during the Third Battle of Ypres.

Second Army was then ordered to evacuate the Passchendaele salient, and 10th Queen's withdrew at 02.00 on 16 April, the two companies in front each leaving six picked men to continue firing rifles and Verey lights until 03.30.

27th US Division of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) was attached to Second Army for training, and on the night of 31 July/1 August 106th US Infantry Regiment took over part of 124th Bde's line for a tour of duty.

By early morning on 31 August the patrols had pushed past Kemmel Hill without meeting any resistance, and the whole battalion advanced, with HQ situated at 'Donegal Farm'.

Passing Au Rossignol Cabaret the tail of the column was shelled, causing some casualties and disorganisation before it reached the assembly position at 'Rifle Farm'.

In the early afternoon divisional HQ ordered a renewal of the attack by 122nd Bde; these were later rescinded, but the cancellation arrived too late, some of 10th Queen's companies having already begun to advance.

Above the panel there is a stained glass window depicting St Catherine of Siena kneeling before Christ, with an inscription reading 'To the Glory of God and in memory of all ranks of the 10th Service Battalion The Queen's who gave their lives 1914–1919'.

[109][110][111][112][113] War-raised battalions that served overseas were granted a King's Colour at the end of the war, and 10th Queen's received its at a ceremony at Ehreshoven, Germany, in February 1919.

[117] The 38 men of 10th Queen's (together with 4 from other units) who were killed outright by the bombing raid on the night of 18 August 1917 were buried next day in a single mass grave in a corner of the field where they were camped.