|
|
This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this site you agree to accept cookies.
If you enjoy this site please consider making a donation.
Site Home
Help & FAQs
Features
Submissions
Information
Advertisements
World War 1 One ww1 wwII greatwar great 1914 1918 first battalion regiment
Pte. David Waddell Cruickshank
British Army 1st Btn. Cameronians (Scottish Rifles)
from:Glasgow
My Grandfather David Cruickshank fought the Battle of Le Cateau, He was born in Glasgow in 1894. He joined the 1st Battalion the Cameronians (The Scottish Rifles) early in 1914. Army number 11132. The Regiment was training in the Highlands in Perthshire, when they were called back to Merryhill Barracks Hamilton. The Regiment was entrained to Southampton, and crossed over to Le Havre, from there they went to Mons, where the Cams were put into a new division, the 19th, they were put to the left of the Mons-Conde canal.
After the battle of Mons, 2nd Corps was the last to get away, they walked night and day in the sweltering August heat without food and water, getting involved in skirmishes along the way. Eventually reaching Le Cateau, the Regiment was told to make for the train station or get some rest in the town square. The battle of Le Cateau started the following morning at about 6.30 am.
My Grandad and another Cameronian were trapped in the town, he ran down a street but the Germans were coming the other way, he ran into a doorway, where there was a local woman with a bucket of water, a shot was fired at him but missed and hit the bucket and the lady's dress. He had already been wounded before the battle, so he laid down in the street feigning death, as he said in an interview in Paris in 1927, the street was full of dead horses and men, so I just led there hoping the enemy would pass me by, which they did. He crawled into an alleyway and found a garden full of flowers and shrubs, he lay there for hours, and he said he could here British Artillery firing over his head. He crawled into a cellar of a house, where Madame Baudhuin looked after him. This brave lady kept him for over two years, until his capture in 1916. He was sentenced to death by a German court marshall, and Madame Baudhuin was sentenced to ten years in prison in Germany. There is a lot more to this story, some funny some sad, further details can be found on hellfirecorner.co.uk
Related Content:
Can you help us to add to our records?
The names and stories on this website have been submitted by their relatives and friends. If your relations are not listed please add their names so that others can read about them
Did your relative live through the Great War? Do you have any photos, newspaper clippings, postcards or letters from that period? Have you researched the names on your local or war memorial?
If so please let us know.
Do you know the location of a Great War "Roll of Honour?"We are very keen to track down these often forgotten documents and obtain photographs and transcriptions of the names recorded so that they will be available for all to remember.
Help us to build a database of information on those who served both at home and abroad so that future generations may learn of their sacrifice.
Celebrate your own Family History
Celebrate by honouring members of your family who served in the Great War both in the forces and at home. We love to hear about the soldiers, but also remember the many who served in support roles, nurses, doctors, land army, muntions workers etc.
Please use our Family History resources to find out more about your relatives. Then please send in a short article, with a photo if possible, so that they can be remembered on these pages.
The free section of The Wartime Memories Project is run by volunteers.
This website is paid for out of our own pockets, library subscriptions and from donations made by visitors. The popularity of the site means that it is far exceeding available resources and we currently have a huge backlog of submissions.
If you are enjoying the site, please consider making a donation, however small to help with the costs of keeping the site running.
Hosted by:
The Wartime Memories Project Website
is archived for preservation by the British Library
Copyright MCMXCIX - MMXXIV
- All Rights Reserved -We do not permit the use of any content from this website for the training of LLMs or for use in Generative AI, it also may not be scraped for the purpose of creating other websites.
