Private Henry Young

Private Henry Young, 1st/4th ( Border ) Battalion, Kings Own Scottish Borderers. He was killed in action in France, aged,34, on the 1st September 1918 during the ” Advance to Victory”. He had been born in Selkirk in 1883 and was the son of the late Robert and Jessie Young of 13 Buccleuch Street, Selkirk. Before enlisting in March 1916 he had been employed as a warper at St Mary’s Mill, Selkirk. On his way to join his Battalion in Egypt his Troopship ” Ivernia” was torpedoed and sunk near Crete in the Mediterranean ( see photograph below ). He went on to serve in Palestine before the Battalion was moved to France in April 1918 to help counter the German Spring Offensives. He is commemorated on the Vis-en-Artois Memorial, France. He fell in the fighting near the Hindenburg Line at Queant where the Battalion suffered 2 Officers and 23 Other Ranks killed. The photos showed Allied troops advancing during the final 100 days of the War.