Events will mark Bligny centenary
Preparations are being made to commemorate the centenary of the Battle of Bligny, in which Shropshire regiment soldiers achieved enduring glory.
Soldiers of the 4th Battalion of the King's Shropshire Light Infantry, led by Lieutenant Geoffrey Bright - their most senior surviving officer - attacked and took German positions on top of Bligny Hill south west of Rheims on June 6, 1918.
The battle was in the French sector and a watching French general was so impressed that the entire battalion was awarded the Croix de Guerre avec Palme, the highest unit honour.
Afterwards the battalion always wore the Croix de Guerre flash on the shoulder of their uniform.
The battle has been commemorated annually with a Bligny Day service at St Chad's Church, Shrewsbury, and this year that service on June 6 will be mirrored by a service on top of the hill, which will also involve residents of the local French village of Chambrecy.
Climax to the centenary events will be in Shrewsbury on Saturday, June 9.
There will be a service at St Chad's at 11.30am, followed at 1pm by a reception and lunch at the Shropshire Regimental Museum at Shrewsbury Castle.
Then at 3pm there will be a band and bugles concert in the castle grounds.
Among those present at the centenary events will be Major Mark Adams, grandson of Geoffrey Bright.
The 4th Battalion was a Territorial unit comprising soldiers who typically had peacetime civilian jobs. It was involved in action again during the Second World War, being pitched into the Normandy campaign after D-Day.
The KSLI was reduced to a single regular army battalion in 1948 and the regiment disappeared altogether in 1968 when it was merged with other infantry regiments to form the Light Infantry.
