Private James Waugh

Private James Waugh, 26th Battalion ( 3rd Tyneside Irish ), Northumberland Fusiliers. He was killed in action in Belgium on 14th October 1917 during the Third Battle of Ypres, aged 23. He had enlisted in Wooler and was the son of Thomas Henry and Elizabeth Piercy Waugh of Howtel, Mindrum, Cornhill-on-Tweed and is commemorated on the Tyne Cot Memorial, Zonnebeke, Flanders, Belgium. On that day the Battalion was holding the line near Poelcapelle when it was subjected to heavy enemy shelling. 80 Officers and men were killed and wounded. The photographs give some idea of the appalling conditions the troops had to fight in during the Battle. The heavy shelling had destroyed the fragile Flanders drainage systems and this was compounded by heavy rainfall.