On the 18th September 1921 the Largs War Memorial, paid for by public subscription, was officially unveiled in a dedication ceremony attended by over 200 service and ex-servicemen in a crowd of over 5000. This Sunday people will once more gather to remember the fallen, on the centenary of the end of the Great War.

The 29 foot memorial is dominated by three figures, a Scottish soldier, a sailor, and a soldier of the Dominions of the Empire. The sculpture reflects the service of the fallen; of the 85 men named on the war memorial four served in the Royal Navy or Mercantile Marine, eight in regiments of Dominions of Australia, Canada and Newfoundland, and the remainder served with Scottish Regiments.

To mark the anniversary we are telling the story of three of the men named on the war memorial, one representing each of the three figures standing proud on top of the monument.

On the 3 July 1916 the troop ship ‘HMAT Ayrshire’ set sail from Melbourne with reinforcements for the Australian Infantry Force (AIF). One of these men was Private Daniel Allan, the son of Daniel and the late Janet Allan of 14 Brisbane Road, Largs. Daniel had immigrated to Australia in 1912 and had settled in Auburn, Victoria.

He was assigned to the 14th (Victoria) Battalion AIF, part of the 4th Australian Brigade which had a formidable reputation on the battlefields of Gallipoli and the Somme. He joined his unit on the 23 February 1917 in France, having spent his embarkation leave in Largs with his family. 47 days after arriving in France, he was dead; a victim of one of the worst days in the bloody history of the Australian Forces in the Great War.

In the early morning of 10 April, the brigade quietly moved into ‘no man’s land’ to wait the arrival of six tanks. These tanks were pivotal - their role was to punch holes in the field of barbed wire protecting the formidable German defensive system – the Hindenburg Line at the twin fortified villages of Buttecourt and Riencourt. After long hours waiting in frequent snow storms the tanks failed to appear. At the last minute and just before first light the order was given to cancel the attack.

Despite protests, the order was given for the attack to recommence at 4.30am on the 11th. After a day of further snow, the shattered troops took up their positions in ‘no man’s land’. By 3.30am three of the six tanks had arrived, the remainder had either broken down or had become bogged down.

A steady fusillade of machine gun fire followed which was deliberately light to achieve a measure of surprise against the Germans.

But by 3.20am, the German artillery started to lightly bombard the area.

At 4.30am the tanks moved off, and 15 minutes later the infantry. The plan was starting to collapse, and tanks were either bogged down or knocked out.

The infantry were left to complete the attack against largely undamaged defences. Remarkably, the Australians successfully captured the German front line trench and then the second line. These heavily depleted units were now isolated from reinforcement and ammunition.

At 10am, the Germans started concerted counterattacks from all sides. Soon, as their ammunition and numbers dwindled, the Australians were left with a choice to either stay and be killed or captured, or run the gauntlet of ‘no man’s land’. Sadly, the 4th Australian Brigade were all but annihilated, suffering 2339 casualties out of a total of 3000 men engaged.

For Daniel Allan’s father, and sisters, back home in Largs his loss was yet another body blow, for this was his second son to be killed in the war. The first, William, was killed whilst serving in one of the most famous Scottish Regiments - The Black Watch.

Private William Allan’s death, in contrast to that of his brother who was killed in the heat of battle, illustrates the other extreme of trench warfare.

In January 1916 William Allan with his comrades of the 8th (Service) Battalion, The Black Watch (Royal Highlanders) moved into the trenches near Ploegsteert Wood, in Belgium.

For four months, the trench suffered little until one night when there was a great deal of machine gun fire. Up to the end of April 1916, the battalion’s casualties were 21 killed and 61 wounded from this sporadic and random fire. One of these was William Allan who was shot in the head and killed on 25 April 1917.

At sea a different type of war was being fought. After the inconclusive Battle of Jutland in 1916 between the Grand Fleets of Britain and Germany, the principle weapon of the war at sea became the submarine. In 1917 the Germans policy of unrestricted submarine warfare against allied shipping was taking a heavy toll, and was in danger of turning the tide of war in favour of the Germans. In May 1917 alone 206 allied ships were attacked in the English Channel and North Atlantic. One of these ships was the SS Dartmouth, a defensively armed merchant ship of 2,870 tons, which was torpedoed without warning and sunk 35 miles south east of the Fastnet Lighthouse, off the coast of Ireland. Her whole crew of 25 were lost. The 2nd Engineer onboard the Dartmouth was 35 year old, Largs born, John Main MacArthur. He was the third son of Jamieson and Agnes Main MacArthur of 8, Lorn Street, Glasgow, and resided with his wife of only a few months at 46 Wilton Street, Glasgow.

As with the Allan family, this was not the only loss the MacArthur family had suffered in the War. Two other sons, Lance Corporal Jameson MacArthur and Private Robert MacArthur had already been killed; Jameson on the 1st July 1916 on the first day of the Somme, and Robert on the 9th April 1917 in the Battle of Arras.

Two families, five sons - Lest we forget.

Thanks to Ian McIntosh for the information.