In A Flanders Field

Written neither as a conventional biography or battalion history, this work centres on the remarkable life of Joe Waite, a boy soldier of the Great War. Though, in telling his story, the names and lives of 64 of his fallen comrades are also revealed. All were lost in just one month of fighting, during the hell that was the Third Battle of Ypres – also known as Passchendaele. Born in a tough, working-class neighbourhood in Coventry, in the heart of the industrial Midlands, Joe’s childhood was blighted by the loss of his mother and tempered by his father’s decision to separate him from his siblings and remarry. The need to earn his keep forced him into factory work from an early age, soon resulting in a humbling brush with the law. Eventually, the outbreak of war, and later, a family row over a pair of boots, lead to his enlistment in the army, at just 16 years old. Hiding the secret of his true age from his comrades in the 1/7th (TF) battalion, The Royal Warwickshire Regiment, Joe left Coventry and its troubles far behind as he fought his way across Northern France, including at the infamous Battle of the Somme. His time on the Western Front would eventually draw to a close outside the city of Ypres in Belgium, in October 1917. In that month, and still officially too young to fight, Joe was awarded a Military Medal for his bravery at the Battle of Broodseinde. Using sources such as war diaries, personal, public, and military records, the account of not only the battle, but also the story of each man of Joe’s unit who fell there, is told. With further reference to a unique eyewitness account, voice is also given to what thoughts and feelings the men may have experienced as they fought in the mud of Ypres. Then, as the culmination of an exhaustive and painstaking…