Help us enrich the history of the Pals battalions
Trace the brothers, friends and workmates who enlisted together. Sacrificed together. Share your Pals discoveries with us, and together, we’ll build the history they deserve.
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From Caernarfon to Cambridge, Glasgow to Grimsby, the comrades who answered Kitchener's call soon found themselves shoulder-to-shoulder in trenches thick with mud. But there is no single roll that holds the name of every Pal.
Neighbours. Teammates. Brothers. Is there a Pal in your family tree? Share their story with us to help build a comprehensive picture of the battalions’ remarkable roles in the First World War.
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Tracing a poignant Pals story
Meet Chorley Pal James Snailham
Born in 1898 to his single mother, Ellen, when war broke out, James was still just a boy, playing football with his friends on his local village team.
Too young for war
When his football teammates decided to enlist, James went along, eager to follow his friends. At just 16, James should have been turned away, but like so many other underage recruits, the doctor turned a blind eye and passed him fit to join.
Ordinary Lancashire lads
James became Private 15349, 11th Battalion, East Lancashire Regiment. The Chorley Pals were working-class boys from local towns and villages, bound by friendship and fate.
March to the Somme
On 30 June 1916, James and the rest of the Chorley Pals took up position near Serre, bogged down by heavy packs and deep mud underfoot. By dawn, they were ready for the first day of the Battle of the Somme.
Over the top
At 7:30 am on 1 July 1916, James went over the top alongside his teammates. He vividly recalled “Men were lying all over...we hadn’t a cat in hell’s chance.” During the onslaught, a shell tore into James’ leg. By nightfall, he had crawled back to their trench through shell-holes filled with the wounded and dying.
Losses at Serre
In just 20 minutes, 235 comrades were killed that morning, another 350 wounded. Among the Chorley Pals, 31 died, many left to slowly perish in No Man’s Land. James survived but many of his friends paid the ultimate sacrifice.
Survival and service
After six months recovering from his wounds, James returned to serve with the 6th East Lancs. He was awarded the Victory Medal and British War Medal, symbols of the physical and mental sacrifices he carried for the rest of his life.
Life after war
By 1921, James was piecing his life back together in Lancashire, boarding with family, out of work after a spell in the rubber trade. When the next global war broke out in 1939, he was married and working as an insurance agent. A quieter life, no doubt at odds with the memories of warfare that still haunted him.
A long life remembered
James lived to 93, one of the last surviving Chorley Pals. In his later years, he shared his incredible war stories with local press, keeping the legacies of his friends, neighbours and teammates who didn’t make it home alive forever.
Find the friends who fought together
From football fields and factory floors, they came in numbers. Workmates and neighbours became brothers in arms. Like James Snailham, a 16-year-old mill worker who enlisted with teammates from his local football club, only to be sent home after being struck by a shell on the first day of the Somme. Or Percy and Harold Kitchen, the 19-year-old twins from Toxteth who joined the Liverpool Pals. Both were killed in action, the heart ripped out of their family.
For over a century, many Pals’ stories have been lost to history. You can help us fill the gaps.
Watch our short video to find out how.
Pals in the papers
Our newspaper archive, the largest British and Irish collection online, offers unmatched insight into the history of the Pals battalions.
From signing up to service on the front line, you’ll find everything from enlistment photos to casualty lists and heartbreaking letters from the trenches. Nothing else provides such vivid detail to help you understand what life was really like for the young men who went to war together.
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Ordinary boys. Extraordinary stories
Honour the Pals’ legacies by discovering their sacrifices over a century on.
Faces of the fallen
We’ve compiled a touching gallery of everyday heroes, many of them Pals, who gave everything in the Great War.
