14th Battalion Highland Light Infantry
Age 22
Buried: Larch Wood (Railway Cutting) Cemetery Grave IV.F.13
Son of Thomas and Jeannie, 11 Liston Terrace, Bridgeness. On the outbreak of war on 4 August 1914, he was employed as an apprentice blacksmith in Ballantine’s New Grange Foundry in Bo’ness.
David was mobilised as a member of the 10th Royal Scots Territorial Battalion. He was transferred to the 2/8th Royal Warwickshire Regiment and then to the 5/6th Royal Scots before finally being transferred to the 14th Battalion Highland Light Infantry. The Battalion was in the line from Laventie East Post to Charred with one company in support. From 10am nothing more was heard of the three companies that had gone forward to occupy the front line. With the Germans now turning the British flank and following a discussion with the CO of the 2nd Royal Scots Fusiliers, who were on the Battalions left, it was decided to make a fighting retreat across the River Lys with the Battalion completing their crossing at 4pm. David was wounded, a gunshot wound to the left arm, during the fighting and taken prisoner.
He was taken to Limburg Prisoner of War Camp, located north-west of Frankfurt, before he was transferred to the German Naval Hospital in Bruges. He died there on 21 April 1918 from gas gangrene in the wound.
On the 22 January 1925, his body was exhumed and reburied in Larch Wood (Railway Cutting) Cemetery located south-east of Ypres (now Ieper) town centre.
