Casualties mount in latest fighting
Talented cricketer and draper’s son killed
One well-known Stirling area cricketer was killed in action and another severely wounded in the latest fighting.
Rev James A Adam, minister of Cambusbarron UF Church, was notified his younger son, Lt Allan Adam, A&SH, was killed instantly on October 1, 1918, by a German shell.
The 24-year-old was a student at Glasgow University when he joined the Army in 1915, getting a commission in the 7th A&SH. In November, 1916, he was wounded in the arm at Beaumont Hamel and only returned to France a month before his death. He was attached to the Machine Gun Corp.
Lt Adam was educated at Stirling High where he was captain of both cricket and rugby football clubs, and in 1913, his last year at the school, he won the prize bat given to the best cricketer.
His elder brother, Lt John E Adam, Gordon Highlanders, had been wounded a short time earlier and was in hospital in Newcastle where he was said to be “progressing favourably.
Another officer caught up in the latest fighting was Capt Duncan F McLaren, Royal Scots. He was severely wounded on September 28, 1918, during the ‘big push’ at Cambrai.
The captain sustained gunshot wounded and a prisoner of the Germans. He wrote that his condition was improving although he doubted if he would be able to use his arm again.
More recently, the parents received the good news that following an exchange of prisoners, he was back in Britain and receiving treatment in a London hospital.
Pte Brown was an apprentice grocer in the Plean branch of the Bannockburn Co-operative Society. He later worked in the Co-op branch at Bannockburn and was well known in the area. wounds to the face, thigh and knee and was in a London hospital where he was said to be doing as favourably as can be expected in the circumstances.
Capt McLaren was the youngest son of Mr JT McLaren, formerly the factor at Polmaise and at that time Lord Rosebery’s factor at Dalmeny.
He joined the Colours in September, 1914, and was wounded in June, 1918. Like his two brothers, Jack and Alick, Capt McLaren was a “capital cricketer” and played for Clackmannanshire.
•Information was received by Mrs Kay, Main Street, Cambusbarron, that her husband, Pte Charles Kay, Royal Scots Fusiliers, had been killed in action in France. Pte Kay was formerly manager of the Billiard Saloon in Baker Street, Stirling, and enlisted in May, 1916. He had been on active service for almost two years, taking part in operations in Palestine before being deployed to the Western Front.
•Cpl David McAree, son of Mr Robert McAree, draper, King Street, Stirling, was reported to have been seriously wounded while fighting in the Balkans Campaign. Though only 21, Cpl McAree was described as “almost a veteran”. He was a member of the Stirlingshire Territorials and was mobilised with the battalion in 1914. At Ypres in 1915, he was wounded when the Germans launched the first gas attack of the war. After recovering in the UK, he was sent to Salonica.