Durham Light Infantry, 6th Battalion, Service no. 250850
Born: 1881. Died: 1953
Story
Born in Balne near Snaith, John William Daniels was living in Kippax in 1901, when he was lodging with John & Mary Jane Jeffs. He moved to Keighley and married Ada Victoria Pickles on 4th December 1909. John and his wife moved back to Kippax and he was working as a baker on the High Street before the War.
Private Daniels enlisted on 21st June 1916, aged 34 and 9 months. He was 5 ft 3½ inches tall. He initially joined up with the 23rd Reserve Battalion, before transferring to the 15th Battalion (Durham Light Infantry), and finally to the 6th Battalion. On 25th August 1917, he was docked seven days’ pay for being absent from parade.
John was captured by the Germans on 9th April 1918, and spent a week imprisoned at Fort MacDonald, known as “the Black Hole of Lille”, and now referred to as the Fort of Mons-en-Baroeul (pictured below). When he arrived back in Kippax with Privates Ryder and Taylor, he spoke to the press and in an article printed 6th December 1918, he described there being 300 men to a room at Fort MacDonald, with no sanitary arrangements, where men would faint by the dozen. He then spent five months in a stone quarry, having to load 18 tonnes of stone a day. Food was scarce, and he said that he would not have been able to complete the work without the parcels he received from Kippax. John passed away on the 16th August 1953.
Kippax Roll of Honour 