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SKELTON - IN - CLEVELAND
IN HISTORY
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"WE WILL REMEMBER THEM"
10602 Serjeant JOHN WILLIE SKIPPER.
9th Battalion, Yorkshire Regiment.
Died of wounds, aged 27, on the 9th October 1916.
Born at Castle Rising, Norfolk. Enlisted at Middlesbrough, N Yorks.
Eldest son of John and Mary Skipper of Massingham, King's Lynn, Norfolk.
Husband of Minnie E. Wooding (formerly Skipper), of Castle Ashby, Northampton.
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Dernancourt Communal Cemetery Extension.
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FAMILY:-
1911. John, aged 21, is living at Trincham Farm, Rougham, Swaffham, Norfolk and working as a Waggoner. He had been born in Castle Rising, Norfolk.
His father, John, aged 56, was also a Waggoner on the Farm and presumably a tenant. He had been born in Great Massingham, Norfolk.
His mother, Mary Elizabeth, aged 48, had been born in Castle Rising. She had had 5 children and all were living.
John had 4 siblings at home. Albert, age 17 and also a Waggoner. Edgar, 11, Wilfred, 9 and Arthur age 1.
A Skelton Parish Magazine of 1914 gives John's address as 16 Vaughan St, N Skelton.
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WAR SITUATION.
The 9th (Service) Battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment was formed at Richmond on the 22nd September 1914.
It was attached to the 69th Brigade of the 23rd Division, which in 1916 fought in the Battles of the Somme.
John's Medal Card shows that he was not awarded the 1914/15 Star and therefore did not join his Battalion in France until 1916.
On October 9th. 1916, when he was wounded his Battalion were fighting in the Battle of Le Transloy, which was a stage in the continuing Battle of the Somme, that had started on July 1st and went on into the Winter.
MEMORIAL:-
Dernancourt, where Sgt Skipper is buried, is a village 3 kilometres South of Albert.
The XV Corps Main Dressing Station was formed at Dernancourt in August 1916, when the adjoining Extension was opened.
t the Armistice, the extension contained more than 1,700 burials; it was then enlarged when graves were brought in from small cemeteries and isolated positions in the immediate neighbourhood.
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A
The extension now contains 2,162 Commonwealth burials and commemorations of the First World War.
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