PTE. J. HUTCHINSON

FIRST NAMES: John RANK: Private UNIT: 5th Durham Light Infantry DOB:1921 MARITAL STATUS: Single OCCUPATION: Bricklayer DATE OF ENLISTMENT: January 1943 STATUS: Killed in Action DATE OF DEATH: 10th September 1944 WHERE BURIED: Gheel, Belgium MEDALS: France & Germany Star, 1939-45 Star, Victory Medal, Defence medal

John Hutchinson, as the son of Alf and Mary Hutchinson, was born in 1923 in Northallerton. He came from a family of six brothers and six sisters. He attended the Applegarth school and the National school before starting work as an apprentice brick layer with Tom Willoughby. He was a keen cyclist with the Northallerton Cycling Club. As a bricklayer he was war exempt until he had completed his apprenticeship and could have chosen to be exempt for the whole war but when his call-up papers came, he joined the army because in his own words "All my mates were joining up too"

He was enlisted into the Durham Light Infantry and for a year trained for what was to be the invasion of France culminating in the landings in Normandy on D-Day. The battalion fought their way inland and by the 10th September were at the outskirts of the Belgian town of Gheel. By this time the 5th battalion DLI had been decimated and so were amalgamated with an equally decimated battalion of Green Howards. During the fierce battle for Gheel, John Hutchinson was killed in action.

John lies in a Commonwealth War grave at Gheel Cemetery and is remembered on the Northallerton War Memorial and the Memorial All Saints Church.

John Hutchinson is the younger brother of Harold Hutchinson who was killed in action with the Royal Scots in Burma in 1943.

John was aged 23 years.