Private William McCraw

Private William McCraw, ” C ” Battalion, Tank Corps. He was killed in action in Belgium on 31st July 1917 on the first day of the Battle of Third Ypres, aged 22, and is commemorated on the Menin Gate Memorial, Ypres, Flanders, Belgium. Tanks were not a great success during this Battle mainly because of the broken nature of the ground and their mechanical unreliability. He had been born in Eccles, Berwickshire and was the son of Robert and Margaret McCraw of Redden Cottage, Ednam and of Kersheugh, Jedburgh. He enlisted in the Royal Field Artillery in May 1915 and was posted to the 6th ( Armoured Car) Battery of the Motor Machine Gun Service in France in October 1915. In late 1916 many men were transferred into the Heavy Section, Machine Gun Corps which in July 1917 became the Tank Corps. The churned up Flanders battlefield was not good ground for tanks which were still mechanically unreliable.

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