Second Brother Killed in Action: Lieutenant Austin Hines "A Horrible Death"
Report in the Chester Chronicle
News has just been received of the death in action of Lieutenant Austin Hines, aged 24, of the 10th Durham Light Infantry, brother of Dr Hines of Northwich, who is a Surgeon-Captain in France. This is the second brother Dr Hines has lost in the course of a few months, the other being a major, both he and Austin being solicitors who carried on a practice founded by their late father, in the North of England. Their mother is a lady who was in Paris during the siege of 1870, and the “iron had entered her soul”. Lieutenant Hines joined the army as a private, and won his way to the commission, which had only been obtained a few weeks ago. Quite recently, he was over on furlough, and have only been back at the front a week when he was shot down. Writing home Dr Hines says his brother met a horrible death. He was leading a bombing attack five miles North-East of ______ on a German trench when he was shot through the neck, and also had both legs blown off. The wounds were ghastly, and he died the same night at the clearing station. “This war,” the doctor adds, “makes one creep, and it is a mercy you at home cannot see those who are reported as having died of wounds.”
Date: 01-Jan-1916
Where to find this: British Newspaper Archive
Contributed by Durham County Record Office
