Tess McTiernan has submitted the following:
PRIVATE THOMAS TIGHE
4004, 1st/8th Bn., Durham Light Infantry
In 1911 John Thomas Tighe (b.1880) was living with his widowed mother, Elizabeth Thompson at 3 Kells Buildings, Annfield Plain. Thomas was 30 years old, single and a coalminer.
Thomas enlisted at Stanley into the 8th Battalion DLI. In 1914 the battalion's part-time volunteer soldiers formed into four companies and spent 9 months training for full-time active service overseas.
The 1st/8th Battalion left Newcastle railway station for France on 19 April 1915. Within days, the raw Durham soldiers were fighting for their lives in the Second Battle of Ypres, suffering heavy casualties from shelling, gas, and infantry attacks on Gravenstafel Ridge and especially during their stubborn defence of Boetleer's Farm.
As part of the 151st Brigade of 50th (Northumbrian) Division, the 1st/8th Battalion served until August 1916 in the trenches of the Ypres Salient, Armentieres, and Kemmel. The last two places were supposedly 'quiet', but the battalion rarely enjoyed days free from casualties caused by shell and sniper fire.
Having moved south to join the Battle of the Somme in September 1916, the battalion again suffered heavily in fighting south of Le Sars, and at the Butte de Warlencourt on 5 November. This last attack by the 151Brigade in the mud and the rain failed and the 1st/8th DLI lost almost 150 men killed or wounded.
Thomas Tighe lost his life on this day.
Remembered with Honour
Thomas Tighe is remembered in Dipton on D46.06, in Annfield Plain on A38.01, in Leadgate L65.01, in Durham on D46.013 page 308 and in the attalion History
