IE11 Problem with createElement, innerHTML and firstChild

I have a curious problem that I have been struggling with for a few days.
I have a simple psp page written with jsp 2.2, richFaces 4.5.7 (which loads jQuery library v1.11.3) running on a WildFly-9.0.0 server.  When I load the page in Internet Explorer 11 (it all works in Firefox and Chrome) I start to get errors, the first is in jquery.js line 4198:

// Minified: var a,b,c
    var input = document.createElement( "input" ),
        div = document.createElement( "div" ),
        fragment = document.createDocumentFragment();

    // Setup
    div.innerHTML = "  <link/><table></table><a href='/a'>a</a><input type='checkbox'/>";

    // IE strips leading whitespace when .innerHTML is used
    support.leadingWhitespace = div.firstChild.nodeType === 3;

the error is "Unable to get property 'nodeType' of undefined or null reference".  Presumably div.firstChild is not being set up by document.innerHTML.

I have put up my simple page at http://testshop.actionfarm.co.uk/actjsf5.

Any help or work around would be much appreciated.