Private John Wood

Private John Wood,1st/7th ( Territorial ) Battalion, Northumberland Fusiliers. He was killed in Flanders on 26th April 1915, aged 21, during the Battle of St Julien which was part of the wider Second Battle of Ypres. He had been born in Berwick and was the son of James and Georgina Wood of 9 Albert Road, Spittal and is commemorated on the Menin Gate Memorial, Ypres, Flanders, Belgium. The Battalion had only landed in France on the 21st April and immediately had been rush North into Belgium to make a hasty and unprepared attack in support of a Canadian attack near St Julien. The men were caught in the open in the face of fierce machine gun fire and made no headway. This harsh baptism of fire cost the Battalion over 400 casualties. The photo 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 Divisional Pioneer Battalion. It was erected near the village of Weiltje in the Ypres Salient nearby to where the Division had fought its first action of the War on 26th April 1915.

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