#S/6585 Private Murdoch MacRae
11TH ARGYLL & SUTHERLAND HIGHLANDERS
BORN NEAR OBAN, 29-YEAR-OLD MURDOCH MacRae was a baker with an established history of serving in the militia before the war. He waited until November 1914 to join the army and then rapidly took care of his affairs, enlisting on the 17th in a battalion of the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders and marrying his sweetheart Mary Jane the following day.
Having arrived in France in October 1915, by mid-August the following year Murdoch and his battalion were bivouacked at Albert, receiving drafts to replace those lost in their last stint in the trenches and attempting to avoid the enemy’s high velocity shells by scraping small niches in the riverbanks and drawing covers over themselves with old sacking and waterproof sheets. Thankfully a number of their new recruits were sorely needed specialists and tired officers were switched over with those who had remained in the rest camp the last time everyone had gone into the lines.
On 19th August, Murdoch MacRae and the other Highlanders relieved another battalion overnight, picking up casualties immediately. With the troops next along they were sent out from their own front line to discover if the trench ahead was occupied. The British had noticed that lights being sent up only came from the trenches behind and, indeed, when patrols reported back it was to state there was little or no movement in the line in question. And so it was decided to occupy it by peaceful penetration, dispensing with any artillery preparation, ‘which, in addition to putting the enemy on his guard usually brings forth a severe and continuous barrage from the enemy’.
It was a dull, cold morning on 20th August as the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders finalised their preparations to take over the abandoned enemy line. That evening the battalion began to file up to claim it, told by the occasional wounded Saxon that they came across that the Germans had left days ago. As his comrades began this heartening take over, though, Murdoch MacRae was mortally wounded and, although evacuated back to a casualty clearing station, the 29 year old died before the day’s end. He was laid to rest at Heilly Station Cemetery, plot III.F.12.