Photographs
201237 Private Alfred Cooper, 1/5th Battalion, The Lincolnshire Regiment
These photographs of Alfred Cooper's Army Pay Book, together with a memorial postcard of the 5th Battalion (TA), The Lincolnshire Regiemnt, were kindly sent in by Gary Jucha of Peterborough. Gary was given these pictures by Martin Neale, Alfred's Grandson. We thank both Gary and Martin for sharing this information with us, and for granting their permission to publish those images on this website.
Although the 5th Battalion was part of the Territorial Force, volunteers did serve abroad, in War zones (much like the Territorial Army today). It looks like Alfred may have joined the 1st/4th Battalion and may have been transferred to the 1st/5th later, as there appear to be some changes/corrections made to his Pay Book. Alfred enlisted in Lincoln on 17th may 1915, aged 19. There is a "carried forward" entry - denoting that this was not his first Pay Book - so we can't deduce much about his actual service from this, apart from the fact that he was paid "in the field" from at least 6th October 1917 until at least 13th December 1918. T E Sandall's history of the 1/5th battalion places them in the trenches on the French/Belgian border in October/November 1917. Oddly, an entry dated 24th October 1918 suggests that Alfred was leaving his unit for Service abroad. This is entry is, so far, unexplained, but one theory suggests that he may have been transferring between Battalions at that time, or perhaps returning to the trenches after leave or a rest period.
- Click each image to enlarge
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Deployment of 1/5th Battalion
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