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Remembered Today:

A Liverpool Soldier describes the Christmas Truce


kathleen donaldson

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Private J. Dumphy, of the Lancashire Fusiliers, writes to his family in Liverpool December 29:-

I received your letter in the trenches on Christmas day. We had our Christmas in the trenches as we left our billets on Christmas Eve to relieve the King's Own for their rest.

I will not forget Christmas Eve for a long time to come, for during the night it was freezing terribly, and even the scarfs around our necks were cover with white. When daybreak broke the battlefield would make you believe it was Christmas, as everything was white with the frost.

About four o'clock on Christmas morning the Germans shouted over to us that if we did not fire they would not, so it was quiet in the position we held. About twelve o'clock they called over to us to come over to them, and we did the same to them.

So one German came over to our trenches to ask to bury their dead, but it was hard lines for him, as we had to make him a prisoner, as he had seen what our trench was like.

So we made him write on some paper to tell the others they could bury their dead, so it was thrown over to them wrapped around a stone.

Both sides were out of the trenches, and when the men met half way between their lines and ours they shook hands and then went back.

Private John Dumphy, Lancashire Fusiliers Regimental number 4016

Private John Dumphy/Dunphy Died of wounds.

Name: John Dunphy
Birth Place: Liverpool
Death Date: 24 May 1915
Death Location: France & Flanders
Enlistment Location: Liverpool
Rank: Private
Regiment: Lancashire Fusiliers
Battalion: 2nd Battalion
Number: 4016
Type of Casualty: Died of wounds
Theatre of War: Western European Theatre

His Medal card records his surname as Dumphy and on the CWGC his surname is recorded as Dunphy

We will remember them.

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