Fitz's Luck - A Soldier's Story

May 1915 - a young nineteen year old from the back-streets of Manchester takes the 'King's Shilling' and joins the ranks of the Territorial Force. So begins an extraordinary run of good fortune for Joe Fitzpatrick, born on Christmas Day 1895 and one of twins - Joseph and Mary.

Passed over for a draft of soldiers later decimated on the killing fields of the Somme and with his four brothers already 'in', Fitz finally embarked for France in the Spring of 1917 with his Division - the 66th (2nd East Lancashire's)

His battalion - the 2/6th Manchester Regiment - saw fierce fighting near Lens, at Nieuport on the Flanders coast and at the Battle of Poelcappelle after which Joe won the Belgian
Croix de Guerre for conspicuous gallantry. Wounded and captured in the 1918 German Spring Offensive he spent the remainder of the war in Saltau POW camp near Hamburg.
Fitz's luck had not deserted him!

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