Joseph's Story.
Birkenhead News 09 May 1917“DIED AT THE POST OF DUTY.”
A Well Known Birkenhead Man
Mrs. Armstrong, 11, St. Mary’s Avenue, has been officially intimated of the death in action on April 16th of her husband, Lance Corporal Joseph Armstrong. The deceased soldier was called up on the outbreak of the war, and had been in France for two years and eight months. At the time of his death he had just completed 13 years’ faithful service in H.M. Forces. Before the outbreak of hostilities he was employed at the Woodside Ferry goods stage. It may be remembered that two years ago he was awarded the life-saving medal with the bar attached for rescuing drowning persons from the Mersey. Lance Corporal Armstrong was well-known and respected by a number of Liverpool as well as Birkenhead people. It appears that Lance Corporal Armstrong, who was attached to the Cheshire Regt., was one of a party taking rations to his companions in the trenches when a shell burst and killed him instantaneously together with one of his friends. They are buried side-by-side in a little cemetery surrounded by other brave English heroes. “He was taken while doing his duty, a time when every good man would like to go.” Thus writes the dead soldier’s chaplain, and what grander epitaph would a man wish to have? Lance Corporal J. Armstrong leaves a wife and two little children to mourn his loss.