BAKER, Daniel

Daniel Baker lived at Hope Street, Wordsley, and was a glass-cutter at Stuarts. He enlisted, probably in 1917, and was sent to the Lincolnshire Regiment. He went to the Western Front on the 1st April 1918 in the reinforcements for the battered 2/5th Battalion which had suffered so heavily in the first German Spring offensive of the 21st March. The Battles of St Quentin and Bapaume had left the battalion at under half strength and the drafts of young soldiers which arrived enabled the Lincolns to be sent back to the front line after the second German offensive had broken through on the Lys. In the Battle of Bailleul they again suffered heavily and were driven back to Mount Kemmel. The enemy attack was eventually halted but among the casualties of the Battle of Kemmel Ridge was Private Daniel Baker. He was 19 years of age and was killed on the 18th April, only two weeks after arrival. He is commemorated on the Ploegsteert and Wordsley Memorials.