Died on 24th May 1915 at the 2nd Battle at Ypres, Belgium
.Joseph Burke born Dublin, Ireland and died on 24th May, 1915 aged just 18. Service number 8287 with a rank of Private. Served in the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Dublin Fusilers and long with hundreds of his countrymen remembered without a grave although remembered at the Menin Gate at Ypres - Panel 44 and 46 and honoured every evening by the good people of Ypres. Joseph, died during the second battle of Ypres which consisted of 4 separate engagemets these being as follows :
The Battle of Gravenstafel: Thursday 22nd April – Friday 23rd April 1915
The Battle of St Julien: Saturday 24th Aprill – 4th May 191 5 ?
The Battle of Frezenberg: 8th May – 13th May 1915 ?
The Battle of Bellewaarde: 24th May – 25th May 1915
St. Julien: One month after the Helles landings, the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers suffered a similar tragedy. It was not Turkish bullets that did the killing this time, it was German gas during the second battle of Ypres on the 24th of May 1915. The Dublin Fusiliers were in the trenches near the village of St. Julien, about two miles north east of the Belgian city of Ypres.
The battle at Mouse Trap Farm is quite a famous one in the history of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, the CWGC describes it as "Located half-a-mile north of Wieltje, originally a moated farm with outbuildings. It was first given the name 'Shell Trap Farm' by the British. The unhappy associations of this designation were held to be detrimental to the garrison's morale and the position was subsequently re-named by the Staff as 'Mouse Trap Farm'. On the morning of the attack on 24 May 1915 what was left of the farm after the bombardment ('a mere heap of mud and rubbish') was defended by two platoons of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers; being a mere 30 yards from the enemy trenches the rapid occupation of the farm by the quick-moving German infantry was little short of inevitable"
However I also have another viewpoint of how he died as below and therefore until I have a definative answer I shall leave both viewpointso on the website.
At 2:45 am on the 24th of May, the Germans launched a gas attack on the Allied lines which was the first time that the Germans had used poison gas on a large scale on the Western Front. The German poison gas came ‘drifting down wind in a solid bank some three miles in length and forty feet in depth, bleaching the grass, blighting the trees and leaving a broad scar of destruction behind it.’ By 9:30 pm, out of a battalion strength of 666 men, all that remained when the battalion ‘retired’ was one officer and twenty other ranks. For the record, in just eighteen and three quarter hours, the Dublin Fusiliers had suffered a loss of 645 men who were blown to bits, gassed, or driven insane by the effects of poisonous gas. In the years that followed the ending of the war, many of those who did survive the attack and suffered a gas wound, would die a very slow and painful death from weakened lungs. The Dubliners had no respite, taking part in the next two subsidiary battles at Frezenburg and Bellewaarde despite effectively disintegrated as a fighting unit. The British at that time had no defences against gas attack, indeed the large-scale use of gas by the Germans on the Western Front had begun at Second Ypres. The 2nd Dublins Commanding Officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Loveband of Naas, died the following day. The Battalion did not take part in any more major battles for the rest of the year.
Each name has one thing in common: the bearers have no known grave. Engraved on that memorial are the names of 461 Royal Dublin Fusiliers killed during the Battles of Ypres. 143 of them are the names of Dublin Fusiliers belonging to the 2nd Battalion who died on the 24th of May 1915. Outside the city of Ypres on the road to Menin, stands the majestic Menin Gate memorial. There are 54,000 names engraved into the stone from which the Arch is constructed. Every evening since 1928 at 8pm the last post - the traditional salute to the fallen warrior has been played under the Menin Gate Memorial in Leper, Belgium. ( On a personal note - RESPECT to the people of Belgium for a truely remarkable gesture and mark of respect to theyoung men who died before they even had the chance to live )
Below is a listing for Joseph Burke on the famous gate.
Joseph Burke was one of 4 or possibly 5 Brothers - these being Thomas, Paddy, Jack and maybe one more. They all apparently grew up in tenement blocks in central Dublin and by all accounts were extremely poor see just how bad it actually was. This may well exlain why one of the boys jioned the RDF as did many such boys around this time simply to escape the abstract poverty for many at the time. Although it was surely the case that many felt a sense of duty and some would have even thought that it have been an adventure - surely it was down to their social standing in society as is the case today with many armies around the world who do not have a requirement for " national service. " More insite into the lead up to the Great War from an Irish perspective can be found on Irish Goverment Site