Wartime Memories Project-The Great War
John Joseph Milburn MM
This is the story of a Grandfather I never knew. In 1997 I was given a photograph of my Grandfather and decided to find out details of his life.
According to his death certificate, John Milburn was 34 when he died at Newbiggin by the Sea in 1932; this would make his date of birth 1898. He was one of a family of seven with three brothers and three sisters. After leaving school he worked for a short time as a miner at Newbiggin Colliery.
He volunteered for the Royal Naval Division in January 1915. I suppose he like many other local men, thought that this would be a great adventure and an opportunity to see the world. What a terrible shock he must have had when he discovered the horror of total war.
JJ Milburn Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, Drake Battalion
After a period of training he was sent on an ill-fated expedition to the Dardenanelles, where he landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula with the Howard Battalion of the RND.
In September 1915 he was struck down with dysentry, a common occurrence among the filth and unsanitary conditions of the bridgehead. He was sent back to the greek island of Mudros for hospitalisation, after treatment he was posted back to the Howe Battalion, where he was seriously wounded by a fuse cap from an exploding shell. He was transported back to England on the hospital ship Aquitania for treatment due to the extent of his injuries.
After recovering from his wounds, in April 1917 he was posted to the Drake Battalion in France. There was a huge turnover in men owing to the ferocity of the fighting. He was involved in the third battle of Arras in 1917 and was awarded the Military Medal for Bravery in the field; I believe it was for the part he played in the action at Gavrelle. Over a thirty-nine day period, the casualties during this battle amounted to 159,000.
This must have been taken after he received the MM as you can see the ribbons on his uniform
In March 1918, the German Army mounted a series of counter attacks against the Allies, and there was a general retreat by the whole of the French and British armies. Much of the territory gained by them in nearly four years of war was regained by the Germans. It is true to say that the Allies came extremely close to loosing the war, and it was only the belated entry into the war by America and a concerted fight back by the British Army that saved the day.
During the battle, between Courcelette and Thiepval, my Grandfather received a gunshot wound to the knee which resulted in him being sent to the 3rd Canadian General Hospital in Boulogne. Two days later he was invalided to England. His part in the war was over.
After the war ended in 1918, many men came home faced with the prospect of unemployment, so in January he enlisted in the 39th Battalion of the Northumberland Fusiliers and was sent to Ireland where there was a great deal of civil unrest and IRA activity.
In December 1920, he volunteered for the Royal Irish Constabulary, stationed in Galway, until its disbandment in 1922 following the partition of Ireland.
I assume he came back to the mines until his early death in 1932 of Pneumonia. I have most of his service documents from the Ministry of Defence, Royal Naval Records and Royal Irish Constabulary. They all state that his conduct throughout was very good. Although he did receive a sentance of fourteen days No.1 feild punishment in March 1917 for accidentally wounding another member of his Battalion, an example of the stress and danger that is engendered by war when people are mucking about with live ammunition. I do kno wthat the man he injured was invalided back to England and took no further part in the war, and in a strange way you could say that he could have saveed this man`s life.
John Milburn was buried at St Bartholomew`s Church in Newbiggin, Northumberland, he left behind a wife and four children. It is sad to learn of the conditions that these men had to endure during the Great War, only to die at an early age, of a disease that can be easily cured these days with antibiotics.
John Russell.
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