Private William McCraw.

Private William McCraw, “C” Battalion, Tank Corps. He was killed in action on 31st July 1917 on the first day of the Third Battle of Ypres aged 22. He had been born in Eccles, Berwickshire in 1884 to Robert and Margaret McCraw of Redden Cottage, Ednam and is commemorated on the Menin Gate, Ypres, Flanders, Belgium. He had enlisted in the Royal Field Artillery in May 1915 and was later posted to the 6th ( Armoured Car ) Battery of the Motor Machine Gun Section to France in October 1915. In late 1916 many of the personnel were transferred to the Heavy Section of The Machine Gun Corps which in July 1917 became the Tank Corps. The Third Ypres battleground was not favourable to tanks as the shelling had ploughed up much of the Battlefield. The tanks themselves were very slow and still suffered greatly from mechanical unreliability.