Site Home
This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this site you agree to accept cookies.
If you enjoy this site please consider making a donation.
Great War Home
Search
Add Stories & Photos
Library
Help & FAQs
Features
Allied Army
Day by Day
RFC & RAF
Prisoners of War
War at Sea
Training for War
The Battles
Those Who Served
Hospitals
Civilian Service
Women at War
The War Effort
Central Powers Army
Central Powers Navy
Imperial Air Service
Library
World War Two
Submissions
Add Stories & Photos
Time Capsule
Information
Help & FAQs
Glossary
Our Facebook Page
Volunteering
News
Events
Contact us
Great War Books
About
263631Gnr. John William Flanders
British Army Royal Field Artillery
from:17 Kilwick St, West Hartlepool, Durham
Leeds or Swanage Auxiliary Hospital. Will Flanders is 3rd male standing from left.
John Flanders, known as Will was my Grandfather, and told stories of him being wounded in the trenches when a German shrapnel shell landed in their gun pit. Three of his mates where killed and two wounded. He was in such a bad state that he was moved to be buried, but when two men from the burial detail picked him up to throw him into the pit, he groaned, so they got him to the hospital tent and the rest is history. He was then in hospitals at Swanage and Beaulieu Auxiliary Hospital, Harrogate near Leeds.The two men who saved him used to visit him after the war and up to about the 1950s: he outlived them both. He came home and was a soft furnishing buyer for Hill Carters department store in West Hartlepool then in WW2 he worked as a wage clerk in I C I Billingham until he retired in the 1950s. He married Violet Ann Symons and had two daughters, Clara Grace and Winifred Patrica. I was recently lent some old photos to scan into my computer from a cousin and found a newspaper article about his time at Beaulieu hospital, and a photo of him with others and nurses on a post card.
The newspaper clipping reads, Gunner Flanders of the Light Field Artillery who has been out in Flanders, is in the Beaulieu Hosital recovering from the effects of twenty wounds. They had been subjected to a heavy bombardment by the German artillery. This went on for two hours, when a shrapnel shell burst near to Flanders and others. The shell practically fell at their feet. Three were killed and two wounded, Flanders got twenty pieces of shell in various parts of his body. Several of these have been taken out, other pieces have worked out, whilst he still has small pieces remaining. He is getting on nicely.
J W Flanders in 1918
news paper cutting
Related Content:
Can you help us to add to our records?
The names and stories on this website have been submitted by their relatives and friends. If your relations are not listed please add their names so that others can read about them
Did your relative live through the Great War? Do you have any photos, newspaper clippings, postcards or letters from that period? Have you researched the names on your local or war memorial?
If so please let us know.
Do you know the location of a Great War "Roll of Honour?"We are very keen to track down these often forgotten documents and obtain photographs and transcriptions of the names recorded so that they will be available for all to remember.
Help us to build a database of information on those who served both at home and abroad so that future generations may learn of their sacrifice.
Celebrate your own Family History
Celebrate by honouring members of your family who served in the Great War both in the forces and at home. We love to hear about the soldiers, but also remember the many who served in support roles, nurses, doctors, land army, muntions workers etc.
Please use our Family History resources to find out more about your relatives. Then please send in a short article, with a photo if possible, so that they can be remembered on these pages.
The free section of The Wartime Memories Project is run by volunteers.
This website is paid for out of our own pockets, library subscriptions and from donations made by visitors. The popularity of the site means that it is far exceeding available resources and we currently have a huge backlog of submissions.
If you are enjoying the site, please consider making a donation, however small to help with the costs of keeping the site running.
Hosted by:
Copyright MCMXCIX - MMXXIV
- All Rights Reserved -We do not permit the use of any content from this website for the training of LLMs or for use in Generative AI, it also may not be scraped for the purpose of creating other websites.