Pte 24932 James McDonald

• Age: 30
• From: Liverpool
• Regiment: The King's (Liverpool Regiment) 17th Btn
• K.I.A Wednesday 12th July 1916
• Commemorated at: Bernafay Wood Brit Cem
  Panel Ref: G.46

James was the husband of Ann Elizabeth Mabb whom he married in St. Marie’s, Southport, on 16th April 1913, his wife was from Hull and their son John David was born in the City on 02nd February 1914. A daughter Catherine was born in Hull on 31^st March 1916, when James’ battalion was on the Somme front. It is not likely that James ever met his daughter.

He enlisted in Liverpool joining the 17th Battalion of The King's Liverpool Regiment as Private 24932. The War Gratuity of £6 suggests that James served for 18 months, enlisting in about January 1915.

The murderous fighting that went on inside Trones Wood rendered it impossible to put specific dates on some of the casualties which is why many of the 17^th Battalion losses have been bracketed as killed in action between 10^th – 12th July 1916. The conditions are best described in the following passage from Everard Wyrall’s book The History of The King’s Regiment (Liverpool) Volume II. 

The remembrance of Trones Wood in July 1916 to those who passed through it is of a noisome, horrible place, of a tangled mass of trees and undergrowth which had been tossed and flung about in frightful confusion by the shells of both sides. Of the ghastly dead which lay about in all directions, and of DEATH, lurking in every hole and corner with greedy hands ready to snatch the lives of the unwary. The place was a Death trap, and although the attacks were made with great determination,   the presence of snipers who could not be detected and often fired into the backs of our men made the clearing of the wood impossible.

James was killed in action, aged 30, and was buried close to where he fell, after the Armistice, when graves were concentrated, his body was removed and reinterred in Bernafay Wood British Cemetery, where he now rests.

The cemetery was begun by a dressing station in August 1916 and used as a front-line cemetery until the following April. It contained at the Armistice 284 burials but was then increased when graves were brought in from Bernafay Wood North Cemetery and from the battlefields immediately east of the wood.  Bernafay Wood British Cemetery now contains 945 burials and commemorations of the First World War, 417 of which are unidentified.

He was originally declared Missing, and his family did not learn of his fate until the end of the year. As reported in the Hull Daily Mail on 22^nd December 1916,

“Previously reported Missing now reported Killed, King’s Liverpool Regiment, McDonald, 24932, J. (Hull).” 

His son was two and his daughter just three months old when James was killed.

In 1939 his widow Ann, now 56, son John and daughter Catherine, as well as her mother Mary C. Mabb, are living at 44 Kirklands Road in Hull.  John, 25, is a bus conductor, Catherine, 23, is listed as ‘cripple’.  His widow Ann died in Hull in 1970, aged 87.  His son John died in 1996.  His daughter Catherine appears to have lived until 2007.

James is commemorated  on the following Memorials:

Hall of Remembrance, Liverpool Town Hall Panel 20