Corporal John Clark

Corporal John Young Clark, 17th ( Service ) Battalion, Royal Scots. He was killed in action in Belgium on 20th October 1917, aged 28, during the Battle of Third Ypres. He had been born in Galashiels and was the son of Mary and the late Thomas Clark of Thorn Cottage, Bowden and is commemorated on the Tyne Cot Memorial, Zonnebeke, Flanders, Belgium. He had emigrated to Canada but had returned home in January 1914. He enlisted originally in the Royal Scots Greys in August 1914 and transferred to the 1st ( Royal) Dragoons before being posted to the Royal Scots where he served as a machine gunner. The photos try to give an idea of the atrocious ground conditions where the incessant shelling had destroyed the fragile Flanders drainage systems.

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