Joseph Thompson
Joseph Thompson was born in Carnaduff in County Londonderry in 1893, the son of Robert and Mary Anne; they had seven children born in Ireland, Scotland and locally at Charnock Richard. The 1911 had Joseph living with his parents at 166 Moor Road and working as a Porter at Chorley Railway Station.
He served in the Machine Gun Section and was wounded in the face at Serre on the 1st July 1916, having treatment at a hospital in Huddersfield. He was wounded again on the 8th May 1917 at Oppy Wood and had treatment for his wounds and shell shock in a Southend hospital. He returned to the Front and was posted missing on the 5th September 1918 whilst on patrol in No Man’s Land near Oosthove Farm near Nieppe, close to Ploegsteert Wood on the Ypres Salient. He died of wounds in German hands on the 7th September 1918 at Verlinghem.
Joseph now lies in New Irish Farm Cemetery, north-east of Ieper (Ypres) in Belgium. He was probably laid to rest at La Miterie German cemetery at Lomme, which contained the grave of eight British soldiers who died in early September 1918 and whose bodies were moved to New Irish Farm Cemetery after the Armistice. On his gravestone is the phrase “The sunbeams to linger on our dear departed sleeps”.
