James Haynes joined the Army as a volunteer leaving his young family in order to go and fight with the 1st Royal Welch Fusiliers. He was wounded at Festubert and sent home to recover. Memories from the family say that he didn't want to go back to the front and tried to make his injury worse. Sadly he was not successful and he was returned to his Unit, he went over with the first wave in the Battle of Loos, and as official history records state, uncut wire proved a major obstacle to many of the attackers who were mowed down by machine gun fire trying frantically to find an exit. James like so many others who braved the curtain of fire, also became a casualty statistic and his body was never found. There is therefore no grave to remember him by instead his name appears on the Loos Memorial. James died on the 25th September 1915.

Rita Hipkiss