Joseph Tague, King's Liverpool

[andalucia]

Hi All

I recieved a email from a guy called Ronnie in Liverpool.

He has told me a very moving story of his visit to his Great Grandfathers grave in 1977.

I am posting his message here as it is a nice read.

I have found bits out for Ronnie, but no service records are coming up for Joseph Tague. This is him on CWGC

http://www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_detail...casualty=149751

It would be great if anyone knows anything about him to pass onto Ronnie. He no longer has the photographs of the grave. If anybody is going near the cemetery would you be kind enough to take a photo please.

Here is the message, I was very moved reading this

Ant

In 1984 I was a member of 307 ( City of Liverpool ) Field Ambulance RAMC (V). That year, Our Annualcamp was taking place in Grobbendonk , near the town of Herentals in Belgium.

The only other time I had ever been to Belgium was travelling through from Ostend on our way to the 1977 European cup final. I knew my Great-Grandad was buried somewhere in Belgium because the family sometimes mentioned it.

I asked my Grandma, his daughter Florence Roberts if she had any information on my Great-Grandad Joseph Tague. She had some old papers in a box which included a letter of condolence to his wife from his employer, Liverpool Corporation, and a letter from the government giving the name of the cemetery he was buried in, Lijssenthoek.Joe joined the 1st/5th Battalion of The King's Liverpool Regiment. One of the Liverpool Pals battalions. He left a wife and 7 children, an eight having died while still a baby.

The only information the family had about Joe was that he had been wounded in the neck while the battalion were in trenches in the Ypres Salient. A neighbour's son had seen Joe being carried up the line by stretcher bearers and written home to tell his mother. She then called round to see if Joe's wife Eliza had any further news. she didn't, but soon the telegram arrived informing her that Joe had died from his wounds.

Like many people who lived through those times, Eliza always referred to 'France' when she meant the area of North eastern France and North western Belgium. Few people ever referred to Belgium.

I made a note of the cemetery and took it to Belgium with me in case it was near Herentals and our camp. The first week passed as any other TA camp did whether on Salisbury plain or Catterick. Living in tents then spending four days on exercise with other TA and regular units. The following saturday, we left the tents for a permanent camp in Grobbendonk.

Already there were our friends from 308 ( City of London ) General haspital. Our chaplain asked if anyone was interested in a coach trip to visit the battlefields of Flanders. Suprisingly, only about 50 people were interested out of several hundred, the bars of the town being a bigger attraction for them.

We made an early start on the Sunday morning, the chaplain having found a retired Royal Corps of Transport Major who was an expert on the area to act as guide. The Major brought with him some tapes of interviews with veterans of WW1, and tapes of popular songs of the day. I asked him if he had heard of Lijssentoek. He had, and told me we would be passing very close to it and would make a stop.

After a trip along the motorway, the Major pointing out places where incidents of WW2 had taken place, we arrived in Flanders. We saw the WW1 memorial to the Rifle Brigade, which the Germans had shot at when they invaded again in 1940, the site of one of the tunnels the British had dug under the German trenches, some very substantial two storey German block houses made of concrete, and on to the cemetery near Ypres where Captain Noel Chavasse VC and Bar was buried.

I was very interested in seeing this paticular grave as Captain Chavasse ran for Sefton Harriers, the club I was a member of. His father had been the second Church of England Bishop of Liverpooland had christened some of Joe's children at St Luke's church, so there was a slight family link. As we were a medical unit and Captain Chavasse was an officer in the RAMC, we had a short service at the grave before getting back onboard the coach. We had only been travelling a few minutes when we stopped and the Major announced we were going to look for the grave of a relative of one of our party.

The other passengers seemed very interested, and everyone left the coach to see the grave of Joe Tague. Commonwealth War Graves have solid stome gate post and inside one of the posts is set a steel box containing a book with the details of each grave, the name, rank and number, name of wife and the address at the time of death og the man interred. How long these books would last back home is anyone's guess.

The Major took out the book and asked me if the named man was my Great-Grandad. Its quite a moving experience to see the details of a relative, even one who had died many years before, written down. There, in a place far away and from a different time was Joe's name, the name of his wife Eliza, and their address, 31 Blake Street, Liverpool. The house was destroyed by a land mine in December 1940, along with much of the family photographs and papers, so I would like to place on record my thanks to Anthony Hogan of Yo Liverpool for filling in sevaral important gaps.

We soon found Joe's grave, which like every other grave was immaculately maintained. The King's ( Liverpool ) Regiment badge, his name, rank and serial number were unaffected by decades Belgian rain, and were very clear on the White headstone.

The Major told us that Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery had been attached to a field hostpital and that most of those buried there had died of wounds while being treated at the hospital. Not far from Joe's grave were a row of five German graves. The headstones of the German soldiers differed from those of Commenwealth troops in being square topped rather than having a slight arc.

The Major explained that in the Ypres Salient, the German's were able to fire on the allied armies from three sides, but as even the slightest hill gave a valuable view of enemy positions in the mainly flat Flanders countryside, the British were in no mood to relinquish the salient or the town which stood beside it.

I took some photograph's of Joe's grave to give my Granmother and several members of our party wanted photograph's of me standing behind his headstone to take back home to show their families. If only Joe had known that twenty four years after his death, his surviving son Edward and his son-in-law, Jack Roberts would be back in Belgium and France fighting over the same country against the same enemy.

We boarded the bus and the Major told us we still had plenty to see, which turned out to be correct! In the next few hours we visited Hill 62, the nearvy sanctuary wood, Maple Copse, Polygon wood, Kemmel, Hellfire corner, Ploegsteert wood ( nicknamed " Plug Street " ) the massive crater left by the mine at Hooge, the huge Tyne Cot Cemetery, and the nearby field where Canadian Lt Col. John McCrae and an unknown RAMC Captained who was dressing his wounds penned the Great war poem ' In Flanders Fields '

We visited the town of Poperinghe which is home to Talbot House, the house which Rev 'Tubby' Clayton opened as a place where soldiers could rest when out of the front line for a few days. The charity 'Toc-H' takes its name from Talbot House ( T H being 'Toc-H' in the phonetic alphabet of the day.

A visit to the Menin gate to the the thousands of names engraved there and to hear Last Post sounded by the Ypres Fire Brigade Buglers rounded off the day. All commenwealth countries are represented on the walls of that great memorial and it would do the members of certain political parties well to visit it and see the hundreds of names which are more familiar in the Sub Continent and Africa than the fields of Northen Europe.

For many in our group, the Menin gate would be the highlight of a very interesting and moving day, but for this paticular Scouser, nothing could beat seeing the last resting place of his Great-Grandad, Private Joseph Tague, a Liverpool Pal.

[Promenade]

Ant,

I have posted a page containing all I know about Pte Tague on the ad hoc page of my website (see below) - please direct Ronnie to it. Does not add a lot. I have not found any reference to him in local newspapers and I am not aware of any war memorial inscription still exisiting.

Joe

[andalucia]

Thank you Joe

I have passed it onto Ronnie.

I did try the newspapers and searched the service records, all to no avail.

Ant

[daggers]

Ant

There is a scheme running to record as much as possible about those buried at Lijssenthoek, and there have been posts here a couple of months ago. You might be able to get a photo through them.

D

[andalucia]

Cheers Daggers

I will look for it.

Ant