Second-Lieut John Wilfrid Staddon, born March 20th, 1889, and eldest son of Luton Mayor and Mayoress Alderman and Mrs James Staddon, was reported missing, believed killed in action on the Somme on September 15th, 1916. But on September 22nd a field-postcard arrived from him to say he was wounded and in a base hospital in France and "going on well".
The same morning a letter arrived from Lieut Staddon (pictured) to quell his parents' fears. Relating events of September 15th, he wrote: "I believe I was the last to be knocked out of the battalion. A bullet went in the back of my left arm and passed under the shoulder blade and out in the middle of the back. Am glad to say it didn't find its rest in my back bone. I do not know what the X-ray has revealed, but I do not believe any bones are much damaged.
"I had better try and give you a history of events. We started the attack about dawn. I cannot say where, and until 5 or 6 in the evening I was going strong. Then I stopped a bullet in a rough trench and lost a deal of blood.
"There were practically no men there, and what few there were were leaving for a position behind, so I was left huddled in the trench with three wounded men, one of whom died and the other two eventually crawled away. A Boche dropped in beside me early next morning and pegged out also.
"Fortunately I had pinched a couple of Boches' water bottles which contained coffee, so I was able to exist. I had no field of vision and did not know what was going on, and I was getting very fed up with cold and exhaustion, but the Germans seemed to be making a temporary advance.
"I could not get anybody to assist me until finally, after 23 hours, a couple of fine fellows of the K.O.Y.L.I. [King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry] volunteered to get me away. So with a great deal of trouble and time and at enormous risk I was carried on the back of a K.O.Y.L.I. man under German fire and right in the open back to a line of defence taken up by the Queen's Royal West Surreys.
"There the doctor dressed my wounds, or one of them, and I remained on a stretcher all that night under shell fire. There were a lot of us together in various conditions of life and death, and stretcher-bearers could not be found to take us away, and not a single infantryman was allowed to help us.
"Finally, however, two R.E. officers and a couple of Sappers took me away. After that I was all right. I got to the C.C.S. [Casualty Clearing Station] and had my clothes cut away and wounds properly dressed. In the evening 400 or 500 of the fortunates got on to a Red Cross train. But there were still delays, and we only went 12 miles in 14 hours.
"However, we reached Rouen the next night and since then all has gone well. There are about 20 in this ward, and the nurses are jolly hard worked, also the doctors. There is a daily stream in and out, some going to Blighty and the other going to their Army base to be returned to duty as soon as fit, which won 't be long."
As a footnote he wrote that a doctor had put his name down for "Blighty" and he expected to reach Southampton before the end of the week. The stop press in the Beds & Herts Saturday Telegraph on September 23rd reported that Lieut Staddon had in fact arrived in Southampton that afternoon and had gone to Lady Cooper's Hospital, Hursley Park, near Winchester.
[Beds & Herts Saturday Telegraph: September 23rd, 1916]