Dreadful news after 12-month wait

After 12 months of anxiety, a former Stirling councillor received news he would have been dreading.

Ex-Baillie John Lamb, a master painter, was told by the War Office his eldest son, 2nd Lt George Lamb , Highland Light Infantry, was presumed to have been killed in action on April 20, 1917, in the Middle East.

The 38-year-old joined up in 1915 and was despatched to Palestine with his regiment at the end of 1916.

However, the vessel on which he was sailing was torpedoed in the Mediterranean on New Year’s Day, 1917.

Although no lives were lost, the incident was a prelude to a lot of hard fighting for the lieutenant who met his death at Outpost Hill while fighting the Turks in Palestine.

It happened at a time when the British were being “severely bombed” and Lt Lamb and another lieutenant, with their platoons, were sent to consolidate a position which was under threat.

However, they came under heavy fire from the Turks and only extricated themselves after suffering heavy losses.

A eyewitnesses said: “The last seen of Lt Lamb was that, though wounded, he was lying down firing his rifle for all he was worth.”

Comrades spent the next two nights searching without success for his body and the Turks did report him as having been taken prisoner.

Lt Lamb, who was a solicitor with a Glasgow legal firm, was married but had no family.

Others to make the ultimate sacrifice in the latest fighting were :

•Pte Robert H MacEwen who was killed in action on March 26, 1918, whilst serving with the East Surrey Regiment. His father was the late Bailie Robert MacEwen, grocer, Barnton Street, Stirling.

•Pte Andrew Paterson, Army Service Corp, suffered fatal injuries on April 9, 1918, when a shell burst near where he was sleeping in camp. The 24-year-old was well known in Stirling as his father who was a stableman with Mr Jeffrey, carriage hirer, Port Street, Stirling.

•Pte Alexander Abercromby, A&SH, who was killed in action in France, worked in the gents clothing department at Stirling Co-op, Barnton Street.

His father, Alexander, a plumber lived in Murray Place, Cambusbarron, and he joined up two and a half years earlier aged 16 and a half. Another of Mr Abercromby’s sons was the first to enlist from Cambusbarron and had been discharged from the Army because of wounds sustained in France.

•Pte William Lawrie, A&SH, whose family lived in Burnside, Cambusbarron, was killed in France while serving as a stretcher bearer. The ex-painter was from St Ninians and was for some time secretary of St Ninians Thistle FC and office-bearer in Bruce Memorial Church.

•Pte George Johnstone, A&SH, fell during the fighting in France on April 18, 1918.

The 30-year-old was a seedsman and joined the Army Ordnance Corp at the outbreak of war and was in charge of thew Salvage Clothing Department at Larbert for 12 months. He was later transferred to the Northumberland Fusiliers and had been in France for three months when he was killed.

He was the son of Mr James Johnson, timber merchant, and was the second member of the family to die in the war. His brother, Gilbert, Royal Flying Corp, having been killed in an aeroplane accident in England on December 15, 2017.