Joe Leslie Hicks

A Sergeant with 24th Bn., Joe died on 13th of November 1916 at the age of 22. 

Joe was born at Banbury in 1894, a son of Harry John and Gertrude Hicks. In 1901 his family lived at 35 West Bar, Neithrop, Banbury. Later his parents lived at Hawthorn Cottage, Quorn, Loughborough. 

By 1911 Joe was a bank clerk living at 51 Station Road, Sudbury. 

Joe enlisted in the Army at Huntingdon. He served with the 24th (2nd Sportsman's) Battalion Royal Fusiliers. He had already been promoted to Lance Corporal when he arrived in France on 15 November 1915 and subsequently became a Sergeant.  

From July to November 1916 Joe's Battalion was heavily engaged in the Battles of the Somme. In July, alone, the Battalion lost 62 killed, 220 wounded, and 101 men missing. On 12 November 1916 the Battalion moved to the Redan Section in preparation to attack, on the next day, the German line between Serre and Beaumont Hamel. In the attack the Battalion lost 25 officers and men killed, 174 officers and men wounded, and 50 men, including Joe, missing. 

Probate records show that Joe lived at Carlton Colville.

On Saint Margaret's War Memorial.