When did the DLI’s Territorial battalions first go into action in the First World War?
In April 1915, just days after landing in France, all five DLI Territorial battalions fought at the 2nd Battle of Ypres as part of the 50th (Northumbrian) Division. These battalions had been training for war since August 1914 and, in just a few weeks of battle around this ruined town in Belgium, they lost almost a third of their soldiers killed, wounded or taken prisoner.