Private John Havery

Private John Havery, 1st/7th ( Territorial ) Battalion, Northumberland Fusiliers. He was killed in action in Belgium on 26th April 1915 and is commemorated on the Menin Gate Memorial, Ypres, Flanders, Belgium. The Battalion had only landed on the Continent on 21st April and had been rushed into Belgium to take part in the Second Battle of Ypres. They were tasked to support the 4th and 6th Battalions Northumberland Fusiliers on an attack near St Julien but were caught in the open and suffered very heavy casualties. It was a brutal introduction to the realities of modern warfare on the Western Front. Nearly 50% of this Battalion of Territorials became casualties with 2 Officers and 172 Other Ranks killed and 9 Officers and 217 Other Ranks wounded. The photograph shows the impressive Memorial raised to commemorate the fallen of the 50th ( Northumbrian ) Division of which the Battalion was part until 1918 when it was transferred to the 42nd ( East Lancashire ) Division as the Pioneer Battalion. It was erected near the village of Weiltje in the Ypres Salient where the Division had fought its first action of the War on 26th April 1915.

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