Sergeant William Turnbull

Sergeant William Turnbull,  1st/9th ( Highland ) Battalion, Royal Scots ( The Dandy Ninth ). He was killed in action in France, aged 23, on 21st May 1917 during the Battle of Arras and is buried in Roeux British Cemetery Pas de Calais, France. He had been born in Chirnside and was the son of Fanny and the late John Turnbull. He and his mother had a traction engine business in Chirnside when he enlisted in late 1914. He joined his Battalion in France in early 1916. The photographs show British troops accompanied by a tank in the main street of a captured village near Arras. The Battalion was part of the 154th Brigade in the 51st ( Highland) Division and after the War an impressive Memorial was raised in its commemoration. It was erected on the Somme overlooking “Y” Ravine where on the 13th November 1916 the Division had stormed and captured the strong German positions in Beaumont Hamel in one of the last actions of the Battle of The Somme. A Plaque on the Memorial reads in both English and Gaelic ” Friends Are Good On the Day Of Battle”.