Lance Corporal William Rathie

Lance Corporal William Rathie, 1st/4th ( Border ) Battalion, Kings Own Scottish Borderers. He was killed in action, aged 30, at Gallipoli on the 12th July 1915 during the ” Charge” on the Turkish trenches at Achi Baba Nullah. He had been born in 1885 in Bowhill, Selkirk and he was the son of the late Helen Rathie and James Rathie of Bannerfield stables, Selkirk. He was the husband of Mary Ann Rathie of Bridge Street, Selkirk, whom he had married in Selkirk in 1906 and is commemorated on the Helles Memorial, Helles, Gallipoli, Turkey. Before enlisting in November 1914 he had been employed as a dyer. 12th July became known as the ” Black Day of the Borders” as out of the over 700 Officers and Other Ranks who had begun the attack only 70 unwounded Men answered evening roll call. Few Border towns and villages had not lost at least one of their sons that fateful day. ( The author’s Great Uncle Corporal James Murray from Coldstream was one of the wounded and after 6 weeks in hospital in Alexandria he returned to his comrades on the Peninsula and fought there followed by Egypt, Palestine and France finally returning home to Coldstream in December 1918). The first photo shows Achi Baba, the objective of the attack and the second shows the Borderers going ” over the top ” at Gallipoli and the third shows the battlefield in 1922.