Friends of the Somme - Mid Ulster Branch  
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Updates for Lance Corporal John Shiels
Date Information
20/05/2020 01441
31/01/2019 Private John Shiels (Mullagh), who is a prisoner of war in Germany, writes that he is slowly recovering from his injuries.
31/01/2019
31/01/2019 From the Mid Ulster Mail dated 29th June 1918: Maghera
23/03/2016
23/03/2016 Niederzwehren Cemetery was begun by the Germans in 1915 for the burial of prisoners of war who died at the local camp. During the war almost 3,000 Allied soldiers and civilians, including French, Russian and Commonwealth, were buried there. In 1922-23 it was decided that the graves of Commonwealth servicemen who had died all over Germany should be brought together into four permanent cemeteries. Niederzwehren was one of those chosen and in the following four years, more than 1,500 graves were brought into the cemetery from 190 burial grounds including Darmstadt.
23/03/2016 Lance Corporal John Shiels is now buried in Niederzwehren Cemetery.
23/03/2016 Official documentation from the Red Cross, from documents supplied by the German prisoner of war camp at Darmstadt, does not give any other details of his death.
23/03/2016 Lance Corporal Shiels died of wounds in Lazarett, Darmstadt, Germany as a P.O.W. on Saturday 18th May 1918. He was buried in Darmstadt.
23/03/2016 Lance Corporal Shiels was captured and became a prisoner of war.
23/03/2016 John Shiels enlisted in Maghera.
23/03/2016 Family: Samuel Shiels, Maggie Shiels, John Shiels (born 13th June 1897), Annie Stewart Shiels (born 19th December 1899), James Shiels (born 9th March 1901), Margaret Caroline Shiels (born 27th April 1905), Samuel Anderson Shiels (born 2nd January 1908), Sara Robena Shiels (born 4th February 1910), Maude Shiels (born 6th March 1912, tbc).
23/03/2016 The 1911 census lists John as age 13 living with the family at house 7 in Mullagh, Maghera, Londonderry. He was still at school. His father was a farmer.
23/03/2016 John Shiels was born on 13th June 1897. He was the eldest of at least six children.
23/03/2016 John Shiels was the son of Samuel and Maggie Shiels. Samuel Shiels married Maggie Stewart on14th February 1894 in the district of Coleraine.
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