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1^st May 2015 sees the 100^th anniversary of a tragic episode in World War I involving men of the 1st Battalion of the Dorsetshire Regiment. On 1 May 1915 the Dorsets were holding part of the front line near the Belgian town of Ypres at Hill 60, a large spoil heap from the construction of the nearby railway cutting. It was a fine sunny day and the enemy was unusually quiet until around 7.15 p.m. when they opened a severe bombardment. And then, before the sentries could give the alarm, thick clouds of gas were shot out of cylinder nozzles from the German trenches.

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Kate Luard’s brother Colonel Frank Luard, Portsmouth Battalion of the Royal Marine Light Infantry, was as a Lt Colonel stationed at Portland and a resident of Weymouth, along with his brother Fred who had left the British West Indian Regiment and was now serving with the Dorset Militia.

A camp on the outskirts of Blandford is earmarked to be the main training camp. Frank and his men of the Portsmouth Battalion are at Forton Barracks, Gosport, when the decision is taken to seize the Dardenelles. Col Luard and his men march the 60 miles to Blandford and Frank writes to his father on 18 January 1915,

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