Private George Whittle

Private George Thomas Whittle, 1st/6th ( Renfrewshire ), Territorial, Battalion, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. He died on 9th May 1918 in the 54th Casualty Clearing Station at Aire of wounds received in action in France, aged 19 resisting the German Spring Offensives  and is buried in Aire Communal Cemetery, Pas de Calais, France.  His Headstone is inscribed ” Though He Is Dead Yet Shall He Live “.This cemetery was used by the Highland Casualty Clearing Station for their hospital nearby. He was the son of Mary and the late Thomas Whittle of Ednam and he was born at New Bewick, Nothumberland. He had lived in Kelso and had enlisted in Berwick before the age of 18. Before that he had been a gardener at Ladykirk Hall, Berwickshire before he enlisted in October 1916. The photographs show Allied troops in rather makeshift defences preparing to resist the German advances. The Battalion was part of the 153rd Brigade in the 51st ( Highland ) Division and after the War an impressive Memorial was raised in its commemoration. It was erected overlooking ” Y” Ravine on the Somme where on the 13th November 1916 the Division had stormed the German positions in Beaumont Hamel. A Plaque on the Memorial reads in both English and Gaelic “Friends Are Good On the Day Of Battle”.