Unknown soldier is named at last
A SCOTS soldier who lay in an unmarked grave in France for 100 years will finally be given a named headstone this week.
Major Alastair Soutar was killed at the Third Battle of Aisne on May 28, 1918, having survived the Somme and Passchendaele. However, his body was never identified.
Now, following research by First World War expert David Tattersfield, a new headstone will be unveiled by the Ministry of Defence.
Family members are flying in from around the world for what they admit will be an emotional ceremony. His great-nephew James Soutar, who lives in Hong Kong, said: ‘I feel that 100 years after he died, the family are coming back to him. And that at last his soul can rest in peace.’
Alastair Soutar, a son of the manse, was born in 1887 and lived in Springburn, Glasgow, until the family moved to Caithness. When war broke out, he enlisted in the Royal Engineers.
In 1918, he was awarded the Military Cross, promoted from captain to major and given command of the 98th Field Company. It was while leading that unit that he was killed.
Mr Tattersfield was at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) cemetery at Jonchery-sur-Vesle, north-eastern France, when he spotted the headstone of an unnamed major.
He trawled through the CWGC database and discovered that, while more than 70 of the many Royal Engineers killed in France around that time had no known grave, only two were majors. One, Alastair Soutar, seemed the most likely candidate.
His research was handed to the MoD and it agreed the unknown major was indeed Alastair Soutar and that a new headstone would be erected. Now his descendants are gathering in France for the ceremony on Wednesday.