Joseph R. FIRTH

20/169, Private, b. Baildon d. Sat. 1st July 1916

Joseph was another of the gallant Bradford Pals who again fell on that sunny Saturday morning, but unlike all the other Clayton Pals, was not with them from the beginning.
When the 16th Battalion West Yorkshire Regt (the 1st Bradford Pals) was formed their ranks were overflowing, and so as a result another battalion was raised (the 18th West Yorks. or 2nd Bradford Pals) but with this came a need to keep these battalions at full strength without keeping the additional men with the regular battalions (due to spatial constrictions). It was a similar case with the Leeds Pals, so as a result a reserve ‘supply’ battalion was formed, consisting of the men who had volunteered with the Bradford and Leeds Pals but who were deemed ‘unfit for active service’ at the time. It was given the title of 20th Battalion, West Yorkshire Regiment, and it was to this that Joseph belonged.
The fate of these men was uncertain, with three options facing them: being discharged as medically unfit; being transferred to the Yorkshire Garrison Artillery for home service (similar to the Home Guard in the Second World War) or, finally, being sent to the front as replacements for casualties within the Pals battalions.

It was Joseph’s fate to be declared fit for active duties and sent to the 2nd Bradford Pals just a few days before the Somme Offensive to replace men lost by the battalion in May and early June. He went over the top with his fellow city men, and must have seen the carnage being inflicted on the helpless Bradfordians as he himself was hit and badly wounded.

At some point during the day he dragged himself back across no-man’s land and the shattered British trench line to find medical support (very few stretcher bearers managed to get onto the battlefield until nightfall in the mid-evening) and was eventually taken slightly further behind the lines. He died of his wounds there and was buried in Euston Road Cemetery, virtually on the front line of the time. This cemetery was soon to be full of Pals as the death count rose and rose with many bodies being brought in from the battlefield.