Lance Sergeant Andrew Piercy

Lance Sergeant Andrew Piercy, 1st/7th ( Territorial ) Battalion, Northumberland Fusiliers. He was killed in Belgium on 31st December 1917, aged 26. He was the son of John and Isabella Piercy of 216 Main Street, Spittal and is commemorated on the Tyne Cot Memorial, Zonnebeke, Flanders, Belgium. At that time the Battalion were holding front line trenches at Passchendaele and lost 12 Other Ranks killed by enemy shelling. The photo shows the impressive Memorial raised to commemorate 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 Weiltje in the Ypres Salient where the Division had fought its first action of the War on 26th April 1915 during the Battle of St Julien only days after landing on the Continent.