The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
War hero story retraced by a ploughed-up spoon
ABlack Watch hero whose body lay undiscovered for a century following his death, moments after saving a comrade’s life on the battlefield, is being remembered.
Lance Corporal John Morrison was killed in 1915 at the age of 29 during hours of bitter fighting in France.
Struck by a bullet in the leg, he managed to crawl to the assistance of his wounded officer and helped him to remove his back pack before he was fatally shot.
Morrison’s remains were missing for 100 years until a farmer made the chance discovery of a bone while ploughing his field.
Morrison was born 135 years ago today at Tomintoul, Moray, and worked as a gamekeeper where he grew up at the Brodie Castle Estate, Forres.
He travelled to Perth to enlist with T he Black Watch on September 7 1914, just one month after Britain declared war on Germany.
By December he had finished training and was sent as part of a draft of 150 recruits to strengthen the 1st Battalion in France as a fighting unit after the huge losses suffered during the First Battle of Ypres.
In early 1915 the battalion took up positions around Cuinchy, the southernmost part of the British lines, and came under ferocious attack on the morning of January 25.
Amid the confusion of the battle and with the British line at risk of breaking, the newlyappointed lance corporal Morrison fell, one of 59 from the 1st Battalion to die on January 25 1915.
Following his death, his brother received a letter from second lieutenant Lewis Willett, which elaborated on the circumstances of his death.
“Some gallant fellow crawled up to me shortly after I was hit, and attempted to assist me off
with my pack, but owing to the nature of my wound, I was unable to turn my neck sufficiently around to see who it was.
“I heard he was hit, and asked him if it was so.
“He replied ‘Yes Sir’ and when I inquired later, I received no reply, but could just touch his hand by reaching back, and found he was dead.
“From the sound of his voice I thought it was your brother, who was in my platoon, and I hoped it wasn’t so, and that I had made a mistake, for he was one of my most valued men.
“His end was a gallant one, and his was a peaceful conclusion to a career, which, had he been spared to prolong it, he could have
looked back on with the justifiable pride of one who has done his work well.”
He was commemorated on the Le Touret Memorial along with the names of 53 of his other comrades who were also killed in action on the same day but had no known graves.
Morrison’s body was found in December 2014, almost 100 years after his death.
The remains were discovered when farmer Claude Lemaire was ploughing in Cuinchy, near Arras, and found a spoon engraved with his service number 5181.
The Ministry of Defence’s Joint Casualty and C o m p a s s i o n at e Centre (JCCC), which deals with British Army casualties,
took over the investigation in order to identify the remains.
The Black Watch Castle and Museum in Perth was contacted to provide proof of a soldier’s death that fitted with the evidence found.
The archive was able to prove that a Black Watch soldier with the army number 5181 had died in Cuinchy at the time the artefacts suggested.
The JCCC contacted Morrison’s nephew, Ian Morrison, who provided a DNA sample.
Having proven Morrison’s identity, his name was removed from the list of the missing.
He was laid to rest in July 2016 with full military honours, at Woburn Abbey
Cemetery, Cuinchy, near the battlefield where he bravely fell.
A new headstone bearing his name was provided by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) which now cares for his final resting place.
The death was not the only tragedy for the family.
His brother, George, the youngest of the family, died of wounds in April 1918 while serving as a captain with the 1/6th Battalion Seaforth Highlanders.
George’s own son, John, born a little more than seven weeks before his father’s death, was also killed in action as a navigator flight lieutenant over Normandy just a month after D-Day in the Second Wo r l d Wa r .
Hundreds of thousands of soldiers were buried on battlefields in individual or communal graves.
The sheer number of casualties meant men were left unaccounted for.
Even if a body was found, identified and buried during the war it did not guarantee this would remain a final resting place.
Continuous attacks, armies being pushed backwards or pressing forwards meant that many cemeteries, especially on the front line, were destroyed.
Soldiers whose bodies were once identified were lost again in the chaos.
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission continues to find and identify the missing dead.