Corporal John Airlie

Corporal John Airlie, 2nd Battalion, Kings Own Scottish Borderers. He was killed in Flanders on 9th February 1915, aged 37. He had been born in Greenlaw and  was the son of Thomas Airlie of Gourlay’s Wynd, Duns and is commemorated on the Menin Gate, Ypres, Belgium. At that time the Battalion were holding trenches in the Neuve Eglise sector of the Ypres Salient but were not involved in any offensive actions. He had been a Regular Soldier and had already served for eight years chiefly in India but also in the Second Anglo-Boer War. He re-enlisted in September 1914. In a letter home to his mother a comrade, Private O’Brien, informed her he had been shot by a sniper. The photographs show British troops in trenches in early 1915.