Private David Hardie

Private David Hardie, 1st/7th ( Territorial ) Battalion, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. He was killed in action in Belgium on 26th April 1915 during the Second Battle of Ypres, aged 23. He had been born in Melrose and was the son of William and Jane Hardie of High Street, Lauder and is commemorated on the Menin Gate, Ypres. He had worked for Mr Moir in Alloa before the War and then had served  his employer’s son as batman. When Lieutenant Moir was killed on 25th April Private Hardie had helped to carry his body in. Apparently he had then gone back out between the Lines to find some of his Officers effects. He did not return and next day his body was found clutching Lt. Moir’s revolver. The artist’s illustrations try to depict the intensity of the fighting that Spring in Flanders and the photograph shows troops trying on their rudimentary gas masks. ( The Germans had first used poison gas on the Western Front on 22nd April 1915 ).