Private Andrew McDougal

Private Andrew McDougal, 1st Battalion, Scots Guards. He died in a Casualty Clearing Station in Belgium on 11th October 1917, aged 34, of wounds received in action during the Battle of Third Ypres. He was the son of the late Thomas and Helen McDougal of Sharplaw, Jedburgh and is buried in Dozinghem Military Cemetery, nr. Poperinge, Flanders, Belgium. The Battalion had been involved in an attack on 10th October near the Wijdendrift-Langemarck road. Conditions were appalling but the objectives were taken. In the period 8th-10th October the Other Ranks had 141 wounded. Before enlisting in June 1915 he had been employed as a shepherd at Oxnam Neuk Farm. He had been sent home with trench foot after the Sailly-Saillisel trench tour before Christmas 1916 and returned in June 1917. On 11th October he and a comrade were hit by shrapnel and he was struck in the arm and legs, the wounds proving mortal. The photographs give an idea of the appalling conditions on the battlefield where the incessant shelling had destroyed the Flanders drainage system allowing the autumnal rains to flood the ground.