Mexborough and Swinton Times, May 13, 1916

Mexborough Man Gassed

Sapper Jake Leadbeater (Royal Engineers)

Sapper Jake led Peter (tunnelling company) of two, Wood Street, Mexborough, who is in hospital in York with gas poisoning.

He has brought home from the front a number of war trophies and curios. In one of his last letters home he says:

“You make me laugh when you asked me if I am near the Germans. We are only a few yards away, and we can shout to one another. I am sending you a fragment of an aeroplane we brought down the other day. The airman was killed, we could have saved him if he had come over to our trenches. He died, however, rather than being taken prisoner.”