February 21, 2019

remembrance ni

Brothers in arms -

The MacDermotts of Belmont

Three “sons of the Manse” served in WW1. Two survived. They were the sons of Rev John McDermott DD, and Mrs Lydia Allan McDermott of Belmont.

The Reverend John MacDermott was the Minister of Belmont Presbyterian Church during the war years and the family lived at Sydenham Avenue and later Belmont Church Road.

John Clarke MacDermott

Machine Gun Corps. Lieutenant. MC. The Rt Hon The Lord MacDermott PC, MC, LLD was President of QUB Services Club in 1969. John Mac Dermott enlisted as a Private with the Royal Irish Rifles before being commissioned in the Machine Gun

Page 1 February 21, 2019 Corps. He served with the Machine Gun Corps in France, Belgium and Germany

He landed in France in March 1918. He was awarded the Military Cross. The citation (London Gazette 15/10/1918) states, “During heavy fighting, this officer showed exceptional gallantry and initiative when in charge of a section of four machine-guns. Despite most difficult counter and heavy enemy fire, he dealt successfully with enemy pockets, holding up the advance. He set a fine example to his men.”

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British Vickers machine gun crew wearing PH-type anti- gas helmets. Near Ovillers during the Battle of the Somme, July 1916. The gunner is wearing a padded waistcoat, enabling him to carry the machine gun barrel. Note that the left hand soldier has an MGC badge on his shoulder. IWM photograph Q3995, with permission.

JC MacDermott was educated at Campbell College and was a graduate of Queen’s. He was called to the Bar in 1921. In 1931 he became a lecturer in Jurisprudence at Queen’s, teaching for four years. In 1936 he was made a King’s Counsel, and two years later was elected to the Northern Ireland House of Commons as an Ulster Unionist member for QUB. He was a member of the Northern Ireland Privy Council and later in 1947 of the British Privy Council. He served as Page 3 February 21, 2019

Attorney General for Northern Ireland, a High Court Judge, and Lord of Appeal. He was made a life peer as Baron McDermott of Belmont.

He was appointed Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland, a post he held for twenty years from 1951 to 1971. He served as Pro-Chancellor of Queen’s University. Born 1896. Died 1979. He was the son of Rev John McDermott DD, and Mrs Lydia Allan McDermott of Belmont. The Reverend John MacDermott was the Minister of Belmont Presbyterian Church during the war years and the family lived at Sydenham Avenue and later Belmont Church Road.

+ Robert Wilson MacDermott

Serving as a Second Lieutenant in the Royal Irish Rifles, 8th Battalion, he died 08/01/1916. Age 25. Educated at Campbell College and QUB 1907 - 11. He graduated B.A., LL B in 1914. His remains were interred at Auchonvillers Military Cemetery. He is named on Belmont Presbyterian Church Roll of Honour.

William MacDermott

Page 4 February 21, 2019 RAMC. Lieutenant. Educated at Campbell College and QUB, from which he graduated MB (1914), BCh, BAO. Born 01/11/1887. Died 31/01/1923 The Buchanans of Derry Edgar James Bernard Buchanan, DSO, and his younger brother Richard Brendan Buchanan were the sons of Robert Eccles Buchanan and his wife Ethel Maud, (nee Williams) of Londonderry. Edgar served in both world wars. Richard died serving in World War 1. Their father Robert was a civil engineer and architect working for the civil service. He was the great grandson of Dr George Buchanan of Fintona, Co. Tyrone and was himself born in Fintona. Both his sons were born in Londonderry. Edgar Buchanan Edgar Buchanan, two years older than Robert, was a lieutenant in the Royal Engineers in India and Egypt before returning to England in September 1915. In WW2 he served as Brigadier, Royal Engineers, in the War Office. He was born on 6th May 1892. At that stage the family lived at Harding Street, Londonderry. They subsequently moved to Templemore Park. Edgar entered Foyle's preparatory school in 1899 where he was later joined by his younger brother Richard. He completed his education at Portora Royal School before joining the Royal Engineers. As a career soldier he served in India, Mesopotamia, Singapore, Malta, North Africa and Italy. He was wounded on two occasions during the Great

Page 5 February 21, 2019 War and was awarded the DSO. After the Second World War he was Director of Fortifications at the War Office. His promotion to the rank of Brigadier appears in the Gazette of 14th November 1947. Brigadier Buchanan died at Halesmere, Surrey on 13th September 1979. Richard Buchanan Richard attended Foyle College in Derry and Bedford School in Bedford, England from 1909 to 1911. He was enrolled as a medical student at the University of Edinburgh, from October 1911 to September 1914. He passed all his exams except the final, with first class honours, being awarded the Bronze medal for Zoology, Practical Anatomy and Surgery. On the day after the Great War was declared he applied for a commission, and, having some time previously obtained certificates A and B of the Officers’ Training Corps, Medical Unit, was gazetted to a lieutenancy in the Royal Army Medical Corps, Special Reserve, on August 16, 1914. Finding a few weeks later that he could not be sent on active service until he had received his full medical qualifications, he applied for transfer to the Royal Scots Fusiliers, and was in due course gazetted second- lieutenant, and went into training at Cambusbarron, Stirlingshire. In May 1915, the Royal Scots Fusiliers 1st/5th battalion left Liverpool for the Mediterranean, arriving at Mudros on the island of Lemnos in the Aegean Sea on 29th May. On 7th June they landed at Gallipoli and engaged in various actions against the Turkish Army.

Page 6 February 21, 2019 Richard Brendan Buchanan was killed on 20th June 1915 while in a support trench and was buried on a cliff overlooking “Lancashire Landing”, one of the beaches on Cape Helles taken by the Lancashire Fusiliers. His permanent grave is in the Lancashire Landing Cemetery at Gallipoli. He was 21. His name is recorded in the University of Edinburgh’s Roll of Honour 1914 – 1919, which was published 1921. The Queen and Queen The Queen in question is . Richard Buchanan’s mother, Ethel Maud Williams, was a daughter of the photographer Thomas Richard Williams, who had a studio in Lambeth and later in Regent St, London. In the 1850s Williams developed a popular business in making high quality stereographic as a portrait photographer and also made a number of series, including of in 1854, and of scenes of English village life. HIs reputation as a portraitist led to commissions from Queen Victoria for photographic portraits of members of the royal household in the mid to late 1850s. Dr , guitarist with Queen amongst his other achievements, has an interest in and is a collector of 1850s stereo photographs. In 2009 he and Elena Vidal published the book A Village Lost and Found, including fifty-nine hand- coloured albumen prints on cards made by Williams of scenes in the village of in Oxfordshire, and through their research, revived an interest in this 19th century photographic pioneer. He is also remembered through their website at http:// www.londonstereo.com/trwilliams/biography.html.

Page 7 February 21, 2019 Roll of Honour - February 21

WW1

+DAVIS, John Henry RAMC. Lieutenant. Died 21/02/1916. Belfast Model School. QCB 1886, MB 1899. BCh BAO. Son of Robert Davis, Duncairn St., Belfast. Died from head and leg injuries after his motorcycle collided with a tram. Belfast City Cemetery.

+HILL, Alexander RN. Seaman. J21769. HMS Princess Alberta. Died 21/02/1917. Born Ayrshire 09/03/1897. Son of Samuel and Elizabeth Hill and brother of James, Samuel (Killed in action 1915), Mary, David and Elizabeth. His father was originally from Carrickfergus but his mother was from Scotland and it was here that all of the Hill children were born. Between 1906 and 1910 the family moved to Carrickfergus and by 1911 were living in the North East Division of Eden. Alexander was by now 14 and had left school to work in the Barn Mills Flax Mill along with his brother Samuel and sister Mary.

WW2

+BARR, William G

Royal Artillery. Gunner. Londonderry. Jakarta, Indonesia +BUSTARD, John

RAF. Lambeg C of I churchyard

Page 8 February 21, 2019 +DUNCAN,William Garfield

RAFVR. Derriaghy (Christ Church) C of I Churchyard +GRANT, Archibald

Royal Artillery. Bombardier. Dundonald Cemetery

+McCLEAN, Eric Thomas Harold

RAFVR. Dunmurry. Alamein Memorial, Egypt

+WALKER, Hamilton

RAFVR. Belfast. Alamein Memorial, Egypt

Service and family information for above have been researched please contact if you wish to have same. On this day - February 21 1940 Britain reduces passenger train service due to coal shortage. 1941 Third and final day of Swansea Blitz (Luftwaffe bombing of Swansea, Wales): 230 killed, but docks and facilities are undamaged. 1942 Convoy ON-166 (60 ships) sailing from Britain to North America, is attacked in the North Atlantic by 19 U-boats from wolfpacks Ritter and Knappen between the 21st and 26th

Page 9 February 21, 2019 February. 14 allied ships are lost for 87,901 tons. 4 U-boats U-225, U-606, U-529, U623 were sunk during the battle. House of Representatives begins hearings about removal of Japanese-Americans from West Coast. German spy Bernard Julius Otto Kuehn convicted of espionage for sending information about Pearl Harbor to the Japanese before and during the attack. 1943 The 25th Anniversary of the creation of the Red Army is celebrated in all allied countries. 1944 U.S. Marines complete the capture of Eniwetok Atoll, suffering 339 dead. Hideki Tojo becomes chief of staff of the Japanese army. 1945 The 1st Ukrainian Front captures Guben. The US 8th Air Force bombs Nurnberg with over 1,000 bombers. The British 2nd Divisionestablishes another Irrawaddy bridgehead, while the British 36th Division breaks through at Myitson, in northern Burma. Meanwhile further British forces cross the Irrawaddy in central Burma. Off Iwo Jima, Japanese kamikazes sink US escort carrier Bismarck Sea and damage the Aircraft Carriers Saratoga and Lunga Point. US Sixth Army secures Bataan Peninsula on Luzon. Page 10 February 21, 2019 Scottish Olympic runner Eric Liddell (memorialized in Chariots of Fire) dies in Japanese internment camp in China, where he had served as a missionary.

U.S. Marines with a 37 mm Gun M3 fire on Japanese positions on the northern slope of Mt. Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima

Acknowledgments Buchanan Family History, April 2015 Campbell College Register CWGC Diamond War Memorial Project website Imperial War Museum

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