Corporal John Wilkinson

Corporal John Wilkinson. 23th Battalion ( 4th Tyneside Scottish ), Northumberland Fusiliers. He was killed in action, aged 19, in France on the 1st July 1916 on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. He had been born in Newcastle and had lived in Acklington and he is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial, Somme, France. He fell in the attack at La Boiselle which cost the Battalion very heavily. 9 Officers and 178 Other Ranks were killed and 7 Officers and 444 Other Ranks were wounded. ( In all the 4 Battalions of the Tyneside Scottish suffered 2,288 casualties in killed wounded and missing that day. The first photo shows British troops attacking across a very wide no mans land into intense machine gun fire with very little cover and the second shows the Tyneside Irish in perfect order as they began their attack at 7.30 a.m.