Corporal Thomas Bateman

Corporal Thomas Stewart Bateman, 6th ( Service ) Battalion, Kings Own Scottish Borderers. He was killed in action in France, aged 28, on 25th September 1915 on the first day of the Battle of Loos. He had been born in Selkirk in 1887 and was the son of Joan and the late John Bateman of 2 West Port, Selkirk and the husband of Euphemia Bateman of Bridge Street, Selkirk. He is commemorated on the Loos Memorial, Dud Corner, Loos, France. He had emigrated to Australia with the above Alexander Baptie but had returned in 1912 and enlisted in September 1914. The Battalion objective was the village of Haisnes but the attack foundered in No Mans Land in the face of intense machine gun fire and invisible and uncut barbed wire in front of the German positions in “Mad Point”. Any advance was impossible and the Battalion suffered very heavy casualties. 11 Officers and 358 Other Ranks were killed or missing and 8 Officers and 272 Other Ranks were gassed or wounded. The photographs show an actual attack with the troops disappearing into a ghostly cloud of smoke and the village of Loos after its capture. This day was the first time the British Army had used gas in the War. The third is an artist’s nightmarish image depicting an attack at loos with the troops wearing their gas hoods.