Private John Broomfield

Private John Paterson Broomfield, 2nd/6th ( Territorial ) Battalion, Gloucestershire Regiment. He was killed in action in France on the 19th July 1916 aged 19 and is commemorated on the Loos Memorial, Dud Corner, Loos, France. He had been born in Selkirk in 1897 and was the son of William and Agnes Broomfield of 29 Shamrock Street, Birkenhead where his father was employed as a railway locomotive fitter. He had originally enlisted in the 4th Battalion, Cheshire Regiment but had been posted to the Glosters who had gone to France in May 1916. He fell in the attack at Fromelles by the 61st ( South Midland ) Division of which the Battalion was part and which had been designed as a diversionary attack to relieve pressure on the Somme further South. The attack was a disaster with 50% casualties from shellfire in the jump off trenches before the assault began and very heavy casualties were suffered in no mans land due to the intense machine gun fire. The photos show troops on the Somme with the colour image showing a peaceful Somme landscape today.