Charles McCallum - Link to Bo'ness
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32035 Private, 44th Field Ambulance, RAMC, 14th Division
Age: 38
Date of death: 12.8.15
Buried: Poperinghe New Military Cemetery Grave I.G.6
Family history: He was one of five sons of Charles McCallum. He was married to Christina McCallum and they lived at 30 Montrose Street, Lochore, Fife with their six children. Charles lived in Bo’ness with his wife and children and worked as a miner at Kinneil Colliery before he moved to Fife. He enlisted in the Royal Army Medical Corps soon after the war began and went to France on 21 May 1915 and joined the 44th Field Ambulance.
Action leading to his death
On the 17 July 1915 the 44th Field Ambulance took over the Dressing Station at the school in Poperinghe and the Advanced Dressing Station at the Prison in Ypres. Read more about the Evacuation Chain and Treatment of the Wounded.
Tragedy Strikes the 6th Battalion Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry
At 6.30am on the 12 August 1915, German artillery opened fire with a long range gun known as the 'Ypres Express' firing from Houthulst Forest some ten miles away. They were targeting the Town Square and St Martin’s Cathedral. It was thought they were searching for one of two targets, an observation post in the tower of the Cathedral or the 6th Battalion Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry, 14th Light Division, whose move to the cellars in the Cathedral had been spotted by an enemy aircraft the day before. The shelling brought down the ceiling of the Cathedral Cloisters burying men from ‘C ’ and ‘D’ Companies who had taken shelter thinking they were safe. In attempting to rescue them others became casualties being buried themselves. The War Diary of the 44th Field Ambulance records that: ‘Received a message from O.C. ADS Prison asking for cars & stating that 6th DCLI had been shelled in crypt of cathedral by heavy shells & large number buried – cars sent. Later reported that rescue party including 6 bearers of this ambulance had been caught by heavy shell & two bearers had been killed and two missing.’ The War Diary records Charles as being killed.
Two officers, Major Carew Barnett and Adjutant-Lieutenant R C Blagrove, who rushed from the 6th Battalion HQ to the area of the Cloisters were killed by a shell that landed close by. They are buried in the Ypres Reservoir Cemetery. Despite orders to keep clear of the area the Company chaplain went forward with four volunteers from the Battalion, he was severely wounded as was ‘C’ Company’s Captain Andrews. The rescue work was taken up by the 11th Battalion King’s Liverpool Regiment (Pioneers), they were the Divisional Pioneer Battalion, who worked on throughout the day despite continuous shelling. The 6th Duke of Cornwall’s had five men rescued, two officers killed, two wounded, nineteen other ranks killed and eighteen wounded. Their headstones in Ypres Reservoir Cemetery have inscribed ‘Believed to Be Buried’ which is an indication that they had been buried during the War, their graves being lost in a later shelling of the Ypres Reservoir Cemetery, and their bodies being discovered in the cellars of the Cathedral after the Armistice as has been claimed.
There is also a further tragedy that has become mingled in this story, it involves the discovery, so it is said, of some forty men of ‘B’ Company of the 6th Cornwall’s discovered in the cellars of the Cloth Hall after the War. The graves in the Ypres Reservoir Cemetery do not support this number story.
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