Pentland Road - 2

I have completed the transcription of tributes to the Fallen from Lewis for the year 1939, which comprises the first 4 months of the Second World War. The Stornoway Gazette records 19 losses until the last week of that year, and I am highlighting the following tributes: The sinking of the trawler James Ludford The heroes of the Rawalpindi Donald Macarthur, 10 Cromore Angus John Paterson, 3 Brue Murdo Mackenzie, 21 Swordale Alex Finlayson, 10 Calbost John Montgomery, 16 Ranish The full list of names of Lewis casualties for 1939 is: Murdo Mackenzie, 21 Swordale John Mackenzie, 21 Swordale [Rawalpindi] Norman Macleod, 25 Swordale [Rawalpindi] Angus John Paterson, 3 Brue [Northern Rover] Alexander Matheson, 26 Brue [James Ludford] Archibald Macrae Rodger, 59 Keith Street, Stornoway [RAF] John Murdo Nicolson, 3 Marybank / 39 Lower Bayble [Rawalpindi] William Macleod, Marybank [Rawalpindi] Donald Macarthur, 10 Cromore [Rawalpindi] Alexander Finlayson, 10 Calbost [Courage...

Today, I have transcribed several tributes to men from Lewis who fell during the first four months of the Second World War. The greatest losses were incurred on 23 November 1939, when the armed merchant vessel Rawalpindi took on the German battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau . I shall devote a separate blogpost to the tributes related to that event. One casualty, however, John Mackenzie of 21 Swordale, lost his brother only twenty days beforehand. Murdo drowned off Newcastle-upon-Tyne on 3 November 1939 at the age of 29. Murdo Mackenzie was a very popular fellow in the island in the late 1930s, as he was a bus driver at Swordale and involved with the local football teams. Apart from the tribute I have transcribed , there were several more to Murd in later editions of the Gazette.

31 July 1883. The Napier Commission is sitting at Poolewe, Wester Ross, and Mr Fraser-Mackintosh is interrogating Donald Mackenzie of Second Coast, Gruinard . 28967. How may people were cleared out of what now goes under the name of Drumchork? —I don't know about the number of families that were in Drumchork, but there was a place adjacent to myself out of which the people were cleared and scattered throughout the whole earth, and the people of Dingwall came and pounded them upon the stones; and the meal that was being prepared for the family was taken away off the fire, and thrown outside.

28639. Sheriff Nicolson. —Do you really think a man is. in a nobler position who is working for day's wages to another, than a man who has a bit of land on which, if he is industrious, he feels that he occupies a position of some little importance in the country, and holds up his head with a little more dignity ? —[George Pirie] If he is in the position of a small farmer who can tide over bad times, I quite agree with you; but if he has a small bit of ground and requires to appeal to the south for help, I think he is living on charity, which I think has a bad effect on the moral character. .

Presently transcribing the Napier Commission's Report from  Ross-shire, in particular the session at Ullapool. One quote stands out from the fourth witness, 76-year old Duncan Mackenzie: 28 00 9. A re your h o uses in pretty g o od order? — T hey would be none the worse of being better.

Spent an hour or so in Stornoway Library today transcribing tributes to Harris men, who fell in 1917. There were only four tributes in the Stornoway Gazette of 1917, and one for a man from Berneray. The Tarbert War Memorial shows rather more, but details are rather scant. Nonetheless, I managed to fill in the details on one of them: John Morrison, who is listed on the Tarbert Memorial as being from Ard Slave [Ard Shleibhe]. Examination of his service record show that he came from "Beckrivig". A glance at the Ordnance Survey map translates that into Beacrabhaig, half a mile north of Ard Shleibhe on the road to Geocrab in the Bays area of Harris. John Morrison was killed in action on 17 July 1917 at the age of 34. He served with the 46th Australian Infantry, which he joined in November 1915. John was survived by his father Donald, I believe (although not with great certainty) that his mother's name was Mary.