Pair and Military Certificate of Exemption to 49631 to Pte J J Heathfield Essex R / Listed as missing for one month

Pair correctly impressed - 49631 to Pte J J Heathfield Essex R

Condition VF

 

With rare Military Service Acts, 1916 Certificate of Exemption. 

 

John Joseph Heathfield was born in South Normanton, Derbyshire, in 1898. He worked in the coal mines and was given an exemption from military service due to his work in April 1917.

 

Despite this, he enlisted in the Essex Regiment on 24th April 1918 and was posted overseas on 16th August 1918. He joined his Battalion, the 9th, on 29th August 1918 in the field. 

 

On 21st September 1918, he was reported as missing; on 17th October 1918, he was reported as no longer missing. Sadly his service papers don't provide any more information on this. He is not listed as being a German POW, but possibly he escaped? Or had he been wounded, and it wasn't possible to identify him? But he was missing for nearly one month.

 

Heathfield survived the war and was discharged on 1st January 1919.