Private Andrew Hislop

Private Andrew Hislop, 1st/4th ( Border ) Battalion, Kings Own Scottish Borderers. He was lost at sea due to enemy action, aged 34, on the 1st January 1917. He had been born in Selkirk in 1882 and was the son of Mary Hislop. He is commemorated on the Mikra Memorial, Greece. After enlisting he was posted to the K.O.S.B. in Egypt but was lost in transit at sea when the troopship ” S.S. Ivernia” was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine UB-47 off Cape Matapan as it was sailing between Marsesilles and Alexandria with reinforcements for the Middle East. The “Ivernia” was an ocean liner of 13799 tons owned by Cunard Line and built in the Swan Hunter Yard in Newcastle and launched in 1899. In 1914 she was hired as a troopship. On her last voyage she was carrying 2,400 troops. The ship went down fairly quickly with the loss of 36 crew and 84 troops. ( The ship had the tallest single funnel ever fitted to an ocean liner ).