Sergeant Alexander Millar

Sergeant Alexander Millar, 10th ( Service ) Battalion, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. He was killed in action, aged 28, in Belgium on the 12th October 1917 during the Battle of Third Ypres. He had been born in Selkirk in 1889 and was the son of Robert and Jane Millar of 51 Buccleuch Street, Selkirk. He was employed in Selkirk as a wool spinner when he enlisted in August 1914 and joined the 1st Battalion in France as a Lance Corporal in May 1915. He contracted pneumonia and was evacuated back to England. Upon recovery he was back in France with the 10th Battalion in January 1917. He was promoted Sergeant in August 1917 and is buried in Poelcapelle British Cemetery, Flanders, Belgium. ( His brother Robert also fell – see below ) The photos give an idea of the atrocious ground conditions where the incessant shelling had destroyed the  fragile Flanders drainage systems.