Fyvie War Memorial
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FYVIE WAR MEMORIAL World War 1 Anniversary - 2014 Fyvie War Memorial, centrally situated in the village and looking out over the valley of the Ythan. Beautifully designed, dignified, and appropriate to its setting and to its meaning. 67 names - all young men in their prime - from a parish with a population at the time of some 3,500 of all ages. Some had already left Fyvie, for work or study, and some had emigrated to distant colonies, but their families wanted their names to be on this memorial, in this spot, because here were their roots. Not one of them wanted to die, we can be certain. But every single one accepted that it might happen, and that it was, quite simply, their duty. - - - - - When I was very young - primary school age in the 1950s - I passed this Memorial virtually every day. Each Remembrance Sunday, I watched the parade of the British Legion flags, and heard the Last Post echo over the Howe. Of course, at that age, my understanding of the full meaning was very limited. As I grew older, what I wanted was to know more about those 67 names, to put flesh on the simple name/rank/unit inscribed on the panels. Who were these men and their families ? How old were they ? What job had they chosen, before being drastically uprooted to lands of which they knew little, to endure a terrifying ordeal before, in their case, a brutal end to their young lives ? With modern research methods, and motivated by the 100th anniversary in 2014 of the outbreak of the Great War, it has been possible to put together something which is, perhaps, inadequate, but is better than one line per man. 2 This document has been compiled from existing sources and some new research by : Arthur Groves Helen Taylor and Text and Research Research and Photographs Sources, thanks and acknowledgements : - Commonwealth casualty information from the records of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission - Birth, Marriage, Death and Census information from the National Records of Scotland - Canadian casualty information from the Canadian Great War Project - Australian casualty information from the Australian War Memorial - Local casualty information from The War Book of Turriff and Twelve Miles Round - Fyvie Heritage - old newspaper cuttings - Community Learning and Development Department, Gateway Centre, Turriff - access vouchers for scotlandspeople.gov.uk - Aberdeenshire Archives - access to school records - William Carrol - personal family records - Ian Beaton - personal family records - Additional material from the Scottish War Memorials Project - Additional material from De Ruvigny's Roll of Honour - Additional material from the British Newspaper Archive at the British Library * * * The intention is that this will be a living document, modified as new information hopefully comes to light from family sources or other researchers. Please note therefore that this version is VERSION FM_001.01 …. Published 1st October 2013 Any comments, corrections or supplementary information should be sent to [email protected] 3 CONTENTS The 67 men on the Fyvie Memorial - - - page 5 Fyvie casualties, not on Fyvie Memorial - - - page 32 Casualties, Fyvie Churchyard - - - page 34 The Memorial and its inauguration - - - page 36 Woodhead School War Memorial - - - page 37 The War Book of Turriff and Twelve Miles Round - - - page 38 4 THE SIXTY – SEVEN PANEL 1 (East) 1. Arthur Herbert Rosdew Burn 2nd Lieutenant in the 1st (Royal) Dragoons. Died early in the war on 29th October 1914. Commemorated on the Menin Gate Memorial in Ypres, because he had no known grave. Eldest son of Col. Charles Rosdew Burn, MP for Torquay, and Ethel Louise Forbes-Leith, the daughter of Baron Alexander Leith of Fyvie. Charles Burn became in 1923 the 1st Baronet Forbes-Leith of Fyvie. The war death of Arthur meant that in 1930 the successor as 2nd Baronet was his younger brother Sir (Robert) Ian Forbes-Leith. The date corresponds to the First Battle of Ypres, the town to which the British Expeditionary Force had retreated after being driven out of Antwerp. The British troops defended stubbornly until the end of that autumn's fighting in November 1914, and established the Ypres Salient to the east of the town. Ypres remained in Allied hands till the end of the War. Arthur Burn was born in London on 30th June 1892, so he was 22 at the time of his death. 2. John Beaton Gunner in the Royal Field Artillery, "B" Battery, 102nd Brigade, Service Number 144126. Served from 7th August 1916, and killed in action at Ypres on 5th August 1917. Buried in Poelcapelle British Cemetery, Belgium, about 10km north-east of Ypres heading towards Bruges. The cemetery is a very large one, laid out after the Armistice when graves were moved in from the surrounding battlefields and a large number of smaller cemeteries. 7,478 Commonwealth servicemen of the First World War are buried or commemorated there, of which 6,231 are unidentified. John Beaton was a farm worker, the son of George Beaton of West Monkshill, Fyvie. He was 26 years of age. His brother George also served, in a Mechanical Transport unit of the Royal Army Service Corps, because of his pre-war experience as a chauffeur. Enlisted early in 1916, he remained in uniform until late 1919, despite a period of serious illness in 1917. 3. Albert George Rutherford Mackie Gunner in the Royal Field Artillery, A Battery 91st Brigade, Service Number 167359. Died on 9th October 1917 and buried at Ruisseau Farm Cemetery, Belgium, a small cemetery on the edge of the town of Langemark, about 10km north of Ypres. The location and the date mean that he was a casualty in the First Battle of Passchendaele, effectively part of the 3rd Battle of Ypres. Third Ypres cost the British Expeditionary Force 5 about 310,000 casualties, with about 260,000 casualties on the German side, for very little territorial gain. At the time of the 1911 Census, he was living in Aberdeen as a boarder while he pursued his school studies. Aged 22 at the time of his death, he was the son of Catherine Mackie, of Roseville, Fyvie, and the late Adam Mackie (died 1912). 4. Robert Rothnie Gunner in the Royal Field Artillery, D Battery 82nd Brigade, Service Number 125881. Died of wounds on 7th December 1917 and buried in Mendinghem British Cemetery, Belgium. The cemetery is at Poperinge to the north west of Ypres, in an area to which the wounded of the 3rd Battle of Ypres would have been evacuated. It contains over 2,300 British graves. Poperinge became famous as the home of Talbot House (Toc H), the rest and recreation club for all ranks founded by "Tubby" Clayton and others. The Toc H charity continued in London after the War, and still exists in a reduced form in 2013. Robert was born at Reimshill, Fyvie, and was the son of Catherine Rothnie of Turriff. A farm servant before his military service, he was 24 at the time of his death. 5. Alexander Wood Lance-Corporal in the Royal Engineers, 95th Field Coy., Service Number 404214. Died on 24th May 1918 and buried in Bordighera British Cemetery, Italy. The cemetery is on the Mediterranean coast not far from the French border. Bordighera was the site of the 62nd General Hospital, one of many to which casualties were evacuated from the fighting between the British Army, with their Italian allies, and the Austrians. He had seen service in Salonika, but it is not recorded where he received his wounds. Before military service he was already in uniform, as a Police Constable. Alexander was the eldest son of Mr and Mrs William Wood, of Fetterletter, Fyvie, and was married to Mrs Elsie Wood (née Young), later of Inverurie. He was 25 at the time of his death. His brother Henry, farm servant, also fought with the Gordon Highlanders and returned safely. 6. William Carrol Private in the Scots Guards, 2nd Battalion, Service Number 16898. Killed in action on 30th March 1918, and commemorated on the Arras Memorial, France, because he had no known grave. Arras was much fought over in two World Wars, but the date of William's death indicates that he was a casualty of the German 1918 spring offensive. The Faubourg d'Amiens Cemetery, in which the Arras Memorial stands, has 2,000 identified graves, and the Memorial lists some 36,000 British and Commonwealth men who fell in this sector, but whose resting place could not be determined. William was the son of George Carrol, Back Hill, Fyvie, and was a farm servant before enlisting. We are privileged to have access to a personal letter which he wrote home to a cousin, on 29th June, 1917, while undergoing basic training at the Guards Depot at Caterham. Among his detailed comments on the life of a young soldier: "It will be about the end of 6 September before we be ready to leave this and then we have a whiles training at London before we be ready for France and surely by that time the worst will be past." He was 20 years old when he was killed, 9 months after he wrote these words. Speaking of his brother George, he said "I had a letter from his wife today and she was speaking about nothing but poor Dod all through, I am sure she is missing him terrible ….. ". Although of course he never knew, George (3rd Gordon Highlanders, then Machine Gun Corps) survived to the end and returned to Fyvie. 7. John Harper Private in the Scots Guards, 1st Battalion, Service Number 8765. Died of wounds on 13th October 1915, and buried in the military cemetery of Sailly-Labourse, France.