Private, Thomas Alder

Private Thomas Alder, 7th ( Service ) Battalion, Kings Own Scottish Borderers. He was killed in action on 25th September 1915 on the first day of the Battle of Loos in the attack on the Lens Road Redoubts and is commemorated on the Loos Memorial, Dud Corner, Loos, France. Piper Daniel Laidlaw won the Victoria Cross with the Battalion on the same day by pulling up his gas hood and piping his comrades out of the trenches after the gas had blown back on the men.  ( This was the first time the Army had used gas in the War and it was not overly successful ). He was born on 7th March 1886 at Whitsome, Berwickshire and was the second child of Thomas and Alder and Elizabeth Whillans. He is also commemorated on the Hume War Memorial. Thomas’s father was the tenant farmer at Heritage, Whitsome and before enlisting he himself was employed as a ploughman at Hume. The Battalion took their Objectives but with casualties of over 600 Officers and men. The first photo shows an actual attack going in through the ghostly clouds of gas and smoke and the second shows Piper Laidlaw in later years at an Armistice Day commemoration. The artist’s impression depicts Laidlaw piping his comrades into the attack.