Jack Needham

Jack was born in Horbury in 1891, the son of Mrs. Edith Needham, a widow and sewing mistress. In 1911 the family (Edith and her four children) lived in the relative affluence of 7 rooms on Manor View, Horbury. Jack/John was a junior clerk at an iron works.

Jack enlisted May 1915, and was promoted to Sergeant in "A" Company, 7th Battalion of the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry (Service number 12/1448). The battalion was part of the army’s 20th Division in the push towards Passchendaele in the summer of 1917. They had already been involved in heavy actions on 31st July and August 12th, and the horrors in between. One officer described this period thus: “Hell all the time; mud awful, no trenches, no landmarks, no shelters. All movement by night, shellfire all the time and everywhere casualties enormous! Several killed every day and many wounded every hour.”

A further major push was ordered for the early hours of August 16th. But for the most part the artillery barrage had been a failure and no gains were made at all as men were scythed down by machine gun fire. The 7th KOYLI were ordered to take the heavily fortified remains of the village of Langemarck on the left of the line. Despite the mud, the swamps and the lakes, not to mention the enemy machine guns and the loss of all but one officer, Langemarck was taken with a gain of between 1000 and 1500 yards.

The cost of the battle was huge. 7th battalion KOYLI lost 5 officers dead or missing and 3 officers wounded; 28 other ranks killed or missing and 173 wounded. Sergeant John Henry Needham was among the missing. He has no known grave and his name is recorded on the Tyne Cot Memorial, which bears the names of almost 35,000 officers and men who died at Ypres after the beginning of August 1917 whose graves are not known. His death was remembered in the October 1917 edition of St Peter’s church magazine.

Overall that day’s action in total cost 15,000 casualties and the only significant gain was the area round Langemarck (significant being 1500 yards).