703 John "Jack" Keaveney Army Inniskilling Fus from:Sligo, Londonderry John(Jack) of Beechwood Av, Londonderry was reared as an orphan in a Manse, Sligo with his two older brothers, both professional soldiers before him (see Enniskillen War Memorial). He served in Ireland, on the Nile and in Crete before the War.
As one of the Old Contemptibles he was engaged on the left flank of the British Army - family has it before the Battle of Mons proper. There he was wounded in his right hand and bottom when his position was overrun in an Infantry pincher movement. The Germans found him beside a machine gun with the belt in his teeth. They admired him and gave him the best of attention, which included having his sinews and bottom passage fixed by a Vienesse surgeon.
He was a POW and awarded with a ham by the Kaiser for his POW Camp vegetable garden.
He converted to RC and lost his inheritence - the northern Whig family of Boyle were aunts?
He served afterwards as a Barrack warden in Ebrington Barracks, Londonderry.
In WW2 he was employed in runs to east Anglia supplying intercept missiles?
I have not been able to find the skirmish on the left flank but the historians attribute the delay forcerd on the German Advance by the Inniskilling Fus as one of the causes of the war being won.
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