Joseph Hinchliffe, known as Joe to his family was the third child and second son of John Thomas and Jane Elizabeth Hinchliffe (nee Morton), born in December 1897.

 

John Thomas hailed from Masbrough, and was a Glass Bottle Maker in 1901. Jane was born and bred in Conisbrough and in 1901 the family were living at 25 Glass House Row, at Denaby. The couple had four children at this time; eldest Stanley, daughter Edith, Joe himself and younger daughter Elsie who was just 3 months old at the time the census was taken. By 1911 the family have moved to 13 Glassworks Row, and John Thomas is still a Glass Bottle Maker. The couple have had a further three children; Sam, Emma and Jane who is just one year old. The census also shows that the family had had a further child who sadly died. Later that year fifth daughter Nellie was born, and youngest son Tom was born in 1913.

 

At this time, Stanley, Edith and Joe  are all out of school and at work at the glassworks, even though Joe himself is only 13. Stanley, at seventeen years old is a Bottle Blower, Edith works counting bottles, and Joe is listed as ‘Taker in of Bottles into Kilns’.

 

When war broke out, Joe was just sixteen years old, and too young to enlist. Elder brother Stanley however was 21, and plenty old enough to sign up. There are several records for men of his name serving in WW1, one of which was Private 19987 of the York and Lancaster Regiment. Whether this is Stanely is difficult to be sure, as no service records can be found however it is possible. Fortunately if he did serve, Stanely didn’t die in service; he lived until 1970.

 

Joe signed up to the York and Lancaster Regiment on 27th May 1916, when he was 18 years and 5 months old and his records show he had progressed in his work to a ‘Bottle Gatherer’. He was given service number 42151. Joe gave his father John Thomas as his next of kin, who still lived at 13 Glassworks Row at that time. Joe underwent his medical on the 29th November 1916 at Pontefract, and was recorded as being 5’5 and a half inches, and weighing in at just 112lb (8 stone exactly) he was only a slight man. He had a fully expanded chest measurement of 33 and a half inches, with an expansion of 3 and a half inches, meaning his normal chest measurement was just 30”. He is recorded as having flat feet and considered himself Protestant.

 

He was posted to the Army Reserve on the following day, and mobilised on the 23rd April 1917, almost a year later. He was posted to the 10th Battalion of the York and Lancaster Regiment on the 25th April and arrived in France on the 27th July 1917, just over two months before he died. A couple of weeks later on the 10th August, he was transferred to the 1/5th Battalion of the York and Lancaster Regiment where he was part of C Company, A Platoon. During his service, Joe had a completely clean conduct sheet and had no injuries or illnesses at all between his joining the battalion, and his death on 9th October 1917.

 

A month before his death, Joe wrote home to his parents, on a piece of paper which is much stained and marked but the majority of the letter is still legible. It reads;

 

“Dear Father and Mother

 

Just a line to let you know I received your welcome letter yesterday and glad to hear you are all in the best of health as I am in the pink. Well I have not received that first parcel that you send me yet so I am beginning to think it has got lost, but send me another as soon as possible with a few tarts and some more new [illegible, may say ‘cakes’] as they are grand for a change. Well I have received three letters this last day or two, two from you and one from Edith (his sister) but you will have to excuse me not writing straight back as I have not as much time as you have to write them. I don’t think there is any more this [illegible] time from your very loving Son Joe xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

                       one for Tom

                      one for Nellie

   I’ll write again in a day or two”

 

Joe never managed to write again; this was the last letter his parents received from him before hearing word of his death.

 

When Joe joined the 1/5th York and Lancaster Regiment in mid August 1917, the battalion was at Dunkirk on the French coast. On the 11th, the day after he transferred the diaries for the battalion read;

 

“Draft of 35 other ranks, with four months training arrived from base.”

 

Joe was one of these 35. Over the following week the battalion was relieved by the 1/4 York and Lancs and moved to billets at Zuydcoote, just further east along the French coast. They travelled by a mixture of bus, canal barge and route march. At Zuydcoote, on the 18th August they took over Coast Defence of Sanatoriam Section from the 1/4 York and Lancs where they ‘Trained hard – skill at arms and attack practice’ and had their numbers swelled by another 45 men of other ranks (not officers).

 

At the end of August the battalion moved to camp at Fort Des Dunes, within the area of Zuydcoote and continued training. It should be remembered that many of the men – the new recruits – to the battalion were ‘green’ and had had just four months of training on average before being posted. Another source of men filling the battalion around this time from the records can be seen to be men returning from having been wounded – many from gas.

 

In late September, the battalion moved to Lederzeele, slightly further south into France where they once again trained, and received new drafts. On the 28th September they moved again, to Aoquin (which I cannot find on a map) and continued their training. At this time, the battalion numbered just over 1000 men including officers.

 

October saw a change for the men, as they came out of training and began the long march up to the front in Belgium. They marched to Longuenesse, Le Nieppe, and Divisional Reinforcement Camp at Morbecque, just south of Hazebrouck in eastern France. From there they marched via Poperinghe to Vlamertinghe, just west of Ypres, and eventually on the 6th October marched via Ypres itself to occupy dugouts in the old German front line near Wieltje, a small village to the north east of Ypres.

 

At 6pm on the 8th of October, the battalion moved from the reserve line to take part in an operation overnight. The entry for the 8th and 9th October 1917 reads;

 

“At 6.00pm the battalion left the Reserve Line and moved up in file via Abraham Heights and Gravenstafel Cross Roads (both locations in the trench systems) to the assembly position which had been taped out by 2/Lt J Shires, arriving at 2.40am. Companies were formed up by 3.30am, on a tape line laid just west of the Ravebeek Stream.

                The general dispositions for the attack were as follows:-

                The 49th Division had on its right the 66th Division and on its left the 48th Division. The 49th Division attacked with two brigades, the 148th being on the right and the 146th on the left. The 148th Brigade had the 1/4th York and Lancaster on the right, and the 1/5th York and Lancaster going for the 1st objective on the left, with the 1/5th KOYLI leap frogging through them to take the 2nd objective on the left. The 1/4h KOYLI was in Brigade Reserve.

                The march up to the assembly position and forming up were both rendered extremely difficult and exhausting owing to the state of the ground. Very wet weather for a week previous had produced mud of great depth, whilst the whole area of operations consisted of shell-holes, mostly containing two or three feet of water. In spite of this, only five men of the battalion fell out (couldn’t continue, fell out of formation) on the way up. The state of the ground caused the 1/5th KOYLI to be late in getting up to the tapes and they took no part in the action.

                AT zero hour (5.20am) the battalion moved forward to the attack, the men keeping very close up to the barrage. In crossing the Ravebeeke, where the mud was anything up to waist deep, the barrage* was lost for a time, but it was caught up again later. 

                Hostile pill boxes were encountered and captured near Fleet Cottage, a machine gun captured in one of them being used effectively against the enemy.

                In the advance from Ravebeek up the slope towards Meetcheele the battalion came under heavy enfilade artillery fire from the Comines group of hostile artillery and was alas exposed to cross fire from machine guns in Wolf Copse on the left and Snipe Hall on the right. It succeeded, however, in reaching its objective, and as the 1/5th KOYLI had not arrived, pushed beyond until held up by strongly held pill boxes situated on the crest of the slope. Bombing attacks were organised against these but failed owing the lack of supports. A fair amount of wire, which did not appear to have suffered much from our artillery, was alas met on the crest.

                The battalion consolidated the captured ground, our forward posts being about 40 yards in front of the German pill boxes on the crest. Movement by daylight was rendered very difficult and hazardous owing to the number of snipers on the ground.

                The first objective was captured all along the line by 6.00am (on the 9th). This line was consolidated. A defensive flank was formed by our left Company ‘D’.

                10.00am - An attack  organised against the pill boxes at [grid reference] failed. Troops of the 1/5th Y&L, 1/4th Y&L and 1/4th KOYLI took part in this attack.

                2.00pm – The 1/5th West Riding Regiment was placed at the disposal of Lt Colonel Kaye. He sent one company to support the 1/4th York and Lancs, and kept one company in support of the 1/5th York and Lancs, and two companies he pushed forward astride the Wieltje road. One of these two companies eventually formed up with our “B” Company and consolidated with it.“

 

(* The ‘barrage’ was a creeping barrage, where the artillery would lay down shells in a constantly moving line ahead of the advancing infantry to shield them, break through the enemy wire and keep the enemy in their dugouts, ready for the infantry to fall into their trenches as the barrage passed. The risks of the barrage were that if the infantry fell too far behind, the effect was lost as the enemy had time to come out of their dugouts and man their guns as the infantry were approaching, and if the infantry were too fast, or the barrage too slow (or shells fell short) the infantry itself was in danger of being caught in the artillery fire.)

 

The battalion remained in the line for another 24 hours, until it was relieved by a battalion of the New Zealand Division overnight on the 10th / 11th October, whereupon it marched back to Goldfish Chateau, on the other side of Ypres, 1 mile east of Vlamertinghe.

 

The diary lists the casualties of the 9th and 10th as follows:

 

Officers – 6 killed, 1 wounded, 2 wounded and missing, 1 missing believed killed

Other ranks – 58 killed, 249 wounded, 2 wounded and missing, 49 missing

 

Joseph Hinchliffe was killed along with 57 other men and 7 officers on the first offensive he had ever taken part in, three days after first setting foot in a trench system, and the day after he ever saw the front line trenches.

 

Joe’s body was never recovered (or if it was, his grave was subsequently lost) and he is commemorated on the Tyne Cot Memorial to the Missing.