Name
Joseph Windmill
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Sussex Regiment (Royal Sussex Pioneers)
8th Battalion
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Not Yet Researched
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
Biography
Joseph Windmill was born on 23rd March 1890 at Abbots Langley. He was one of six children (four sons and two daughters) born to Amos and Elizabeth Windmill. At thetime of the 1891 Census the family lived at Breakspear Road, Abbots Langley, and they remained in the same area until after the 1911 Census, when they were recorded living at Number 71. Amos worked as a Brick-layer. Joseph was recorded living at the family home in Abbots Langley in the 1891 and 1901 Census, but by 1911 he had moved elsewhere.
Joseph was recorded in the Abbots Langley Parish Magazine Roll of Honour for the first time in November 1914, serving with the 8th Battalion of the Sussex Regiment, and remained with this unit through to the end of the War. However from December 1914 through to November 1915 he was incorrectly listed in the Abbots Langley Parish Magazine serving with the 8th Battalion of the Surrey Regiment.
The 8th Sussex was formed at Chichester mainly from volunteers from all over Sussex in September 1914 as part of Kitchener’s Army. Joseph may have moved from Abbots Langley to Sussex before the War. The 8th Sussex became known as the Pioneer Battalion of the 18th (Eastern) Division on 4th February 1915, and in May moved to Salisbury Plain and then crossed to France on 24th July 1915. This date was confirmed by Joseph’s Medal Roll Card.
The Battalion moved to the Somme Front and took over trenches in the Mametz-Montauban sector, a relatively quiet sector until the Battle of the Somme commenced in 1916.
The Parish Magazine reported in the November 1915 edition that Joseph had been wounded, and this was repeated in the Hertfordshire Advertiser published on 6th November 1915, where he was recorded as a Kings Langley man.
Joseph remained with the 8th Sussex throughout the War, and would have taken part in actions during the Battle of the Somme in 1916 at Montauban, Trones Wood, and the capture of Thiepval and at Regina Trench. The battalion then moved on the advance on the Hindenburg Line in the spring of 1917, before being transferred to Flanders where it took part in the Third Battle of Ypres. When the Germans opened their Spring Offensive in 1918 the battalion returned to the Somme, and was probably during this action that Joseph was awarded the Military Medal, and this was reported in the Parish Magazine in August 1918.
The 8th Sussex participated in the final advance through to the end of the conflict in November 1918, and remained in France until early 1919 where it was employed on salvage work clearing the old battlefields. It was disbanded in March 1919, when Joseph probably returned home.
Joseph survived the War, as did his brother George, and his brothers in law Albert, Arthur and Walter Mead. However his brother John was gassed during the German Spring Offensive in 1918. He returned to England and subsequently died on 5th September 1920.
Acknowledgments
Roger Yapp - www.backtothefront.org
