Tribute to Accrington Pals unveiled in town centre

Hundreds of people turned out in Lancashire today to pay tribute to the 'Accrington Pals.' The men raised from the town were massacred on the first day of the Battle of the Somme during WW1.

Sarah Rogers has more:

Members of the Great War society, dressed as the Accrington pals, take part in a special tribute to those who died. The men of the Accrington Pals battalion lost their lives in the First World War.

A tribute to the men of the Accrington Pals battalion, who lost their lives in the First World War, will be unveiled at a ceremony.

Councillor Miles Parkinson, Council Leader, said:

“The Accrington Pals are interweaved into the very fabric of our local history, famously forming as they did a Pals battalion to fight in the First World War, with many men from this area answering Kitchener’s call.

But on 1st July 1916, on that fateful first day of the Battle of the Somme, they suffered severe losses and over 600 casualties, leaving the community back home shattered and hardly anyone untouched, with so many losing husbands, sons, brothers, uncles, friends.