7588 Bandsman Joseph P Milcoy, 2nd Royal Munster Fusiliers
Arrived overseas: 13 August 1914. Connection: PoW Postcard. Joseph Phillip Milcoy of the 2nd Battalion, Royal Munster Fusiliers, was captured by the Germans on the 27th August 1914 during the battalion's heroic last stand at Etreux. By then, he had been overseas for precisely 14 days, and he would spend the rest of the war as a guest of the Kaiser. Here he is at Friedrichsfeld camp in 1918, heading up the prison camp orchestra, and sitting proudly in the middle of a group of British and allied soldiers. Born on the 21st February 1890, Joseph had enlisted in the regiment in 1904 as a 14-year-old boy, the terms of that enlistment being 12 years with the colours (and no reserve service). Joseph survived his time as a prisoner of war and by the time the 1921 census was taken he was working as a clerk for the Air Ministry. The 1939 Register has him living in Slough and working as an electrician's mate.