Journalist pays ultimate price fighting in France

A Stirling journalist was the latest victim of the fighting in France.

Walter ‘Wattie’ Lees , a corporal in the Black Watch and later the Lovat Scouts, had been in France for only a short time before he was killed in action.

A native of Portobello, Cpl Lees trained as a journalist in Edinburgh and moved to Stirling while still a teenager.

The 32-year-old, who was unmarried, worked on both the Stirling Journal and the Sentinel.

Popular with fellow pressmen because of his “obliging and unjealous disposition”, Cpl Lees was also well known in other circles. He was associated with Stirling Amateur Swimming and Boating Club and as an “enthusiastic harrier” was interested in all kinds of athletics .

Cpl John McWhinnie, Royal Engineers, from Bannockburn, posted missing on April 18, 1918, was reported to be a prisoner-ofwar in Germany. His wife, who lived at Bentheads, received a postcard and a letter from him stating he was wounded and being held by the enemy.

He joined the A&SH in the early stages of the war but was transferred to the Royal Engineers because of his background as a miner. He won the Military Medal while serving with the Aryglls in 1916, and a year later, while with the Engineers, was the recipient of the Croix de Guerre from the French Government. He was at that time the only Bannockburn soldier to win the latter honour.