Private Francis Halliday

Private Francis Halliday, 6th (Service) Battalion, Kings Own Scottish Borderers. He was killed in action in France, aged 20, on the 25th September 1915 on the first day of the Battle of Loos. He had been born in Galashiels and was the son of James and the late Mary Halliday of 7 Park Street, Galashiels. He is commemorated on the Loos Memorial, Dud Corner, Loos, France. He had enlisted in August 1914 and landed in France in May 1915. The Battalion attacked on the Vermelles- Auchy Road but found the German wire uncut and could make no progress under a hail of machine gun fire from the well named “Mad Point”. This disaster cost the Battalion, 19 Officers and 630 Other Ranks in killed wounded and missing. The first photo shows troops advancing into a ghostly cloud of gas and smoke.; This was the first time the British Army had used gas in the War. The artist’s nightmarish impression shows an attack at Loos with the troops wearing their gas hoods. ( His brother William also fell during the War – see below).