| 16/07/2020 |
Private Flanagan was later transferred to the Leceistershire Regiment when he was drafted on foreign service. |
| 16/07/2020 |
John Flanagan joined about 1940, enlisting in the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers. |
| 16/07/2020 |
Prior to enlisting, John was employed in the firm of Messrs J C McKinney and Son, merchants, Maghera, and was very popular and much respected in civil life. |
| 16/07/2020 |
At the time of his death, John’s parents lived at Market Square, Maghera. |
| 16/07/2020 |
Information has been received from the War Office by Mr P Flanagan, of Market Square, Maghera, that his son, Private John Flanagan, has been killed in action in Italy. Private Flanagan joined the Army four years past in the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers and was later transferred to an English regiment when he was drafted on foreign service. The deceased young soldier was 22 years of age. Prior to joining up, he was employed in the firm of Messrs J C McKinney and Son, merchants, Maghera, and was very popular and much respected in civil life. Much sympathy is felt for his sorrowing mother, father and other members of the family on the great loss they have sustained. |
| 16/07/2020 |
From the Mid Ulster Mail dated 28th October 1944: Maghera |
| 31/03/2020 |
The CWGC record Private John Flanagan as the son of Patrick and Margaret Flanagan of Maghera, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. |
| 31/03/2020 |
Private John Flanagan is buried in Coriano Ridge War Cemetery in Italy. His inscription reads: WE LITTLE THOUGHT THAT HE SO SOON IN DEATH WOULD SLEEP AND LEAVE US HERE TO MOURN R.I.P. |
| 31/03/2020 |
On 3rd September 1943 the Allies invaded the Italian mainland, the invasion coinciding with an armistice made with the Italians who then re-entered the war on the Allied side. Following the fall of Rome to the Allies in June 1944, the German retreat became ordered and successive stands were made on a series of defensive lines. In the northern Apennine mountains the last of these, the Gothic Line, was breached by the Allies during the Autumn campaign and the front inched forward as far as Ravenna in the Adriatic sector, but with divisions transferred to support the new offensive in France, and the Germans dug in to a number of key defensive positions, the advance stalled as winter set in. Coriano Ridge was the last important ridge in the way of the Allied advance in the Adriatic sector in the autumn of 1944. Its capture was the key to Rimini and eventually to the River Po. German parachute and panzer troops, aided by bad weather, resisted all attacks on their positions between 4th and 12th September 1944. On the night of 12th September the Eighth Army reopened its attack on the Ridge, with the 1st British and 5th Canadian Armoured Divisions. This attack was successful in taking the Ridge, but marked the beginning of a week of the heaviest fighting experienced since Cassino in May, with daily losses for the Eighth Army of some 150 killed. |
| 31/03/2020 |
Private John Flanagan was serving with the 2/5th Battalion of the Leicestershire Regiment when he was killed in action on 23rd September 1944. |
| 31/03/2020 |
John Flanagan was the son of Patrick and Margaret Flanagan He was born about 1922. |
