James Creighton was a son of John and Elizabeth Creighton. He was born on 6th December 1880. He was one of seven children. The family lived in Coagh. His father was a carpenter. James enlisted in the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers in Cookstown, being given the Service No. 9559. James later transferred to the 87th Company of the Machine Gun Corps. Lance Corporal Creighton was seriously wounded in April 1917. Lance Corporal James Creighton was taken to Etaples General Hospital where he died of his wounds on Friday 27th April 1917.

Étaples is a town about 27 kilometres south of Boulogne. The Military Cemetery is to the north of the town, on the west side of the road to Boulogne. During the First World War, the area around Étaples was the scene of immense concentrations of Commonwealth reinforcement camps and hospitals. It was remote from attack, except from aircraft, and accessible by railway from both the northern or the southern battlefields. In 1917, 100,000 troops were camped among the sand dunes and the hospitals, which included eleven general, one stationary, four Red Cross hospitals and a convalescent depot, could deal with 22,000 wounded or sick. In September 1919, ten months after the Armistice, three hospitals and the Q.M.A.A.C. convalescent depot remained.