Second Lieutenant Walter Paton

Second Lieutenant Walter Storie Paton, 11th ( Service ) Battalion, Border Regiment. He was killed in action in France on 1st July 1916, aged 24, on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. He had been born in Hawick and was the son of John and Annie Paton of Elder Bank, St Boswells and is buried in Lonsdale Cemetery, Authuille, Somme, France. He fell in the storming of the “Leipzig Redoubt” where the Battalion lost 500 men out of the 800 who started the attack. 23 out of 26 Officers were casualties including the C.O. Lt. Col. Machell who was killed. The Battalion was a ” Pals ” Battalion known as the “Lonsdales” after Hugh Lowther, 5th Earl of Lonsdale who raised the Unit in September 1914. Before enlisting he had been a teller in the Jedburgh Branch of the British Linen bank. He had enlisted in the Royal Scots in September 1914 and on receiving his Commission he was transferred into the Border Regiment. His Headstone is inscribed ” Asleep In Jesus “. The photo shows troops attacking over a wide no mans land with the lack of cover very apparent. The colour image shows a peaceful Somme landscape today.