One brother killed as other is injured
Family in mourning after tragic news
A Stirling couple learned 100 years ago this week that one of their son’s had died on the day another was wounded.
The Observer previously reported the death of Lt Walter Hamilton Brodie, who fell on April 9, the first day of the Battle of Arras.
A week later it emerged his younger brother, Colin, a 19-yearold private in the A&SH, was in hospital suffering from wounds sustained on the same day.
Their parents were Peter and Alice Brodie, 1 Clifford Road, Stirling. Mr Brodie was a baker and had a business in Port Street.
Lt Brodie, Royal Scots is buried in the Bailleul Road East Cemetery, St Laurent-Blagny which is near Arras, where so many Scots soldiers among the 159,000 British troops killed, wounded or missing during the intense fighting there between April 9, 1917, and May 15, 1917.
The lieutenant, third son of Mr and Mrs Brodie, worked as a chemist before the war but joined the London Schools Battalion shortly after the fighting started.
He later received a commission with the Royal Scots.
Pte Brodie joined the Army in November, 1915, having studied civil engineering in Glasgow.
Another soldier killed in action on April 9, 1917, was 19-year-old James G Johnston, A&SH, from Whins of Milton.
The former Fallin Colliery miner joined up soon after the start of the war and had spent 15 months in France.
His platoon commander and sergeant wrote to his parents commending his courage and stating he died “with his face to the foe”. April 9, 1917, also saw the deaths in action of privates John Rogers and Robert F Templeton, both members of the machine gun section, Gordon Highlanders.
Pte Rogers was the son of Mr and Mrs Rogers, Old Gaswork House, Bridge of Allan.
Before the war, the 21-yearPte old , who had been at the Front for nearly two years, was an apprentice upholsterer with Messrs Graham and Morton.
Pte Templeton, was the 23-yearold son of Mr William Templeton, of the Balmoral Hotel, Aberdeen, who for many years ran the tobacconist at the south end of Port Street.