York and Lancaster Regiment, 8th Battalion
Born: 18th November 1913.
Story
John was the second son of George Thomas Warren (1877-1936) who was a colliery labourer originally from Brandon, Suffolk, and Ethel Burnett (1888-1968), who was from Ripon. They married in Ripon in 1905, and moved to Kippax in 1910, where they lived on Well Lane, before moving to 18 Coronation Avenue.
John and his younger brother Alfred both worked for T. and R.W. Bower Ltd in Woodlesford, and the brothers were Army Partners, as they were together in Northern Ireland and served in the same battalion, which moved into Burma. They had served together for three years altogether, and for two years in Burma, when Alfred was killed in the jungle. John was by his brother’s side at the time, when the group was hit by a Japanese shell. John was injured in the attack, and was taken to hospital to have a piece of shrapnel extracted from his foot. As soon as John could write, he sent a letter to his mother Ethel.
“Mother, dear, don’t fret too much about Alfie. He wouldn’t want you to worry and he went just as he wished to go, quick and sudden, and as I wish, too, if it is my fate to have to go.” Ethel had already been officially notified that Alfred had been killed, but John was able to add that Alfred had been killed instantly “and probably never knew what had happened.” He wrote to say that he will miss his brother, but feels that “Alfie has at least found peace and quietness there.” He goes on to describe the spot where Alfred was buried: “He is buried there with some more of the boys whom we have been with for such a long time, under a tree that stands just off the road at the bottom of a hill, or as the poet would say, in ‘some corner of a foreign field which is forever England’.” The letter was said to have consoled his mother tremendously. After 10 weeks in hospital, John was given leave and returned to his mother at 18 Coronation Street. After the War, John married Mary Gill (1918-1976) in 1947, and they moved to Allerton Bywater, where John passed away on 13th September 1959 at the age of 45. He had one son Geoffrey, born in 1950.
Kippax Roll of Honour 