Private John Havery

Private John Havery, 1st/7th ( Territorial) Battalion, Northumberland Fusiliers. He was killed in action in Flanders during the Battle of St Julien on 26th April 1915 which was part of the wider Second Battle of Ypres and is commemorated on the Menin Gate, Ypres, Belgium. He had been born in Berwick and had enlisted in Alnwick. The Battalion had only landed in France on 21st April, been hurried North into Belgium been flung into a very hasty attack in support of the Canadians and suffered heavy casualties for no gain whatsoever. The first photo shows troops trying on their rudimentary gas masks. ( The Germans had used poison gas for the first time on the Western Front on the 22nd April ). The second photograph shows the impressive Memorial raised to the 50th ( Northumbrian ) Division of which the Battalion was part until February 1918 when it was transferred to the 42nd ( East Lancashire ) Division as the Pioneer Battalion. It was erected near the village of Wieltje in the Ypres Salient where nearby the Division had fought its first action on 26th April 1915.