Private David Armstrong

Private David Armstrong, 1st/7th ( Territorial ) Battalion, Northumberland Fusiliers. He was killed in Belgium on 15th May 1915 during the Second Battle of Ypres, aged 20. He was the son of Sarah and the late David Armstrong of Ford Hill, Ford, Berwick-upon-Tweed and is commemorated on the Menin Gate, Ypres, Flanders, Belgium. His Battalion was part of the 50th( Northumbrian) Division. At that time, 6th till 18th September, the Battalion were holding front line trenches Nos 70 and 71 near Armentieres and had 2 Other Ranks killed and 6 wounded. The first photo shows Scots troops with their rudimentary gas masks. The Germans had used poison gas for the first time on the Western Front on 22nd April 1915.  The colour photograph shows the Memorial erected to the fallen of the 50th ( Northumbrian ) Division of which the Battalion was part of until February 1918 when it was transferred to the 42nd ( East Lancashire ) Division as the Pioneer Battalion.  It was erected near the village of Wieltje in the Ypres Salient where nearby the Division had fought its first action in the Battle of St. Julien on 26th April only days after landing on the Continent.