Hero Hugh honoured after saving 12 men
A Bannockburn soldier credited with saving the lives of 12 soldiers was awarded the Military Medal for gallantry and distinguished service, the Observer of June 1945, reported.
Pte Hugh Lindie of the King’s Own Scottish Borderers (KOSB), was the son of Mr William Lindie, Old Town, Bannockburn.
He received the medal for an incident on February 18, 1945, when D Division 6th KOSB, in Kangaroo armoured personnel carriers, was held up in an anti-tank ditch covering the German town of Goch , because of difficulties laying bridges.
Enemy troops immediately fired on the Allied troops using a 75 millimetre anti-tank gun and intense artillery, mortar and machine gun fire.
According to the citation for the medal: `Pte Lindie, in the company commander’s Kangaroo, on his own initiative, stood up and engaged the enemy with a Browning machine gun.
`While thus exposed, the Kangaroo from which he was firing received a direct hit from a shell on the outside of the hull.
`Pte Lindie was wounded in the head and the ammunition box of the Browning gun was set on fire, causing rounds to explode. In spite of his wounds, Pte Lindie immediately returned to the gun and tried to remove the ammunition box containing the burning rounds.
`As the box was jammed in position, he could not dislodge it from the gun so with complete disregard for his own personnel safety, he stood up on top of the Kangaroo and kicked the box free from the gun and into a ditch.’
It was considered `by his great courage and initiative he saved the 12 occupants of this Kangaroo from death and injury. His actions, an inspiration to comrades, also resulted in casualties being inflicted on the enemy.
The 31 year-old had been a soldier for 13 years and had served in India and Burma before going to France on D-Day. A former pony driver in Millhall Colliery, he had a brother Thomas who days earlier was wounded while fighting with the Camerons. Another brother, Samuel, was killed in action with the Royal Scots on D-Day. Their father William served in World War One with the ASC Remounts, which was responsible for the provisioning of horses and mules for other Army units.
The Observer also told how residents of Stirling’s Nelson Place threw a party in the Miners’ Welfare
Hall to welcome home Pte John AD Philp, Royal Army Ordnance Corp, who had been a prisoner-of-war in Germany for five years. The private was the only son of Mr William Philp, newsagent and tobacconist, and Mrs Philp, Nelson Place.
Jackie, as the private was known, grew up in Nelson Place and was apprenticed as an accountant with
Messrs Dickson, Middleton and Co before the war. He was a violinist with the Snowdon Orchestra and the Stirling Caledonian and Strathspey and Reel Society and secretary of the Erskine-Marykirk Badminton Club. One of the highlights of a memorable evening was the violin selections played by the guest-of-honour himself.