Sergeant Walter Redpath M.M.& Bar

Sergeant Walter Kerr Redpath, M.M.& Bar, 1st Coy, Machine Gun Corps ( Infantry ). He was killed in action in France, aged 25, on 31st August 1916 during the Battle of the Somme. He had been born in Walkerburn to the late Margaret and John Redpath of Darnick and is buried in Flatiron Copse, Mametz, Somme, France. He had been a Regular soldier in the Cameron Highlanders and had been transferred into the newly formed Machine Gun Corps in January 1916. ( The Corps was formed by transferring battalion machine gun sections into the M.G.C. so it is presumed Sergeant Redpath had been a machine gunner in the Camerons). There is no trace of a second Military Medal being awarded either in the C.W.G.C. site or in the Official Register of Military Medal winners. The M.G.C used the Vickers Mk1 water cooled gun in both defensive and offensive roles. The photograph shows gunners in action and the colour image shows a peaceful Somme landscape today with ” no gas, no barbed wire, no guns firing now”.