Private George Crerar

Private George Gow Crerar, 7th ( Service ) Battalion, Kings Own Scottish Borderers. He was killed in action in France on 25th September 1915 on the opening day of the Battle of Loos, aged 26. He was the son of Alexander and Mary Crerar of Melmerby, Carlisle and was living at Bowmont Forest, Eckford when he enlisted in Kelso in November 1914. He is commemorated on the Loos Memorial, Dud Corner, Loos, France. He fell in the assault on the Lens Road Redoubts and this is the action where one of the Battalion pipers Piper Daniel Laidlaw  won the Victoria Cross for piping the men into the attack playing ” Blue Bonnets o’er the Border” when gas and a hail of lead threatened the whole enterprise. Casualties were very high and there were 611 out of 950 Other Ranks and 20 Officers put out of action.  The photograph shows an actual attack with the troops disappearing into clouds of smoke and gas. This was the first time in the War that the British Army had used gas. The second photo shows the village of Loos after capture and the third shows Piper Laidlaw in later years at an Armistice day commemoration.

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