Private John Aitchison

Private John Aitchison., ” C ” Coy., 5th ( Service ) Battalion, Cameron Highlanders. He was killed in action in France on 25th September 1915, aged 19, on the first day of the Battle of Loos. He was the son of John and Jane Aitchison and is commemorated on the Loos Memorial, Dud Corner, Loos, France. He had been born in the village of Roxburgh and was the son of John and Jane Aitchison of Floors, Kelso. He fell in the fighting in and around the Hoenzollern Redoubt. It was here that Private Pollock from “C” cOY. won the Victoria Cross for his single handed bombing attack on the German trenches. The first photo shows an actual attack with the troops advancing into a ghostly cloud of gas and smoke. The second photograph shows the village of Loos after its capture and the third shows shells bursting on the German defences in the Redoubt. The artist’s illustration depicts the Camerons attacking a German trench.

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