Private Andrew Beattie

Private Andrew Easton Beattie, 2nd Battalion, Kings Own Scottish Borderers. He was killed in action in Belgium on 4th October 1917, aged 28, during the Third Battle of Ypres. He had been born in Newcastleton was the son of Elizabeth and the late Thomas Beattie of 9 Langholm Street, Newcastleton and is buried in Tyne Cot Cemetery, Zonnebeke, Flanders, Belgium. He fell in the attack on Polderhoek Chateau which took place over treacherous and flooded conditions and in the face of intense machine gun fire. It was an impossible task and the Battalion suffered heavy casualties of 11 Officers and 438 Other Ranks. It was here that Captain Machin of Coldstream won his Military Cross for his ” daring reconnaissance and his rallying the men on the flanks where the enemy were pressing “. The photographs give some idea of the desolation of the Flanders battlefield where the incessant shelling had destroyed the drainage systems and turned the ground into a desolate quagmire.