The last Scot to fall in the First World War

THE last Scot to be killed in the First World War can be identified today as the centenary of Armistice Day approaches. Captain Duncan Ronald Gordon MacKay, a Royal Flying Corps captain from Inverness, was shot down during a bombing raid on Cologne on November 10, 1918.

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Captain Duncan Ronald Gordon MacKay, a Royal Flying Corps captain from Inverness, was shot in 1918 (Image: NC)

The 23-year-old flying ace died of his wounds the following day, shortly before the ceasefire was declared and the guns fell silent along the Western Front at 11am on the 11th day of the 11th month.

He served with the Royal Fusiliers and Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders before joining 55 Squadron as a daring pilot, serving alongside the creator of Biggles, William Johns.

Johns, in his foreword to the first Biggles book in 1932, said: “Captain ‘Jock’ MacKay of my squadron survived three years of air warfare, only to be killed by archie [anti aircraft fire] an hour before the Armistice was signed.”

Capt MacKay, a former pupil of Cheltenham College, was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and mentioned in dispatches as an “officer of conspicuous ability and determination” who flew 29 daylight raids.

Showing “cool courage and marked initiative”, he carried out one lone attack on a German aerodrome where he scored two direct hits from a height of just 40ft and “stampeded horses with machine-gun fire”.

He was fatally wounded by anti-aircraft fire above Metz in France and his observer, Lieutenant Harry Gompertz, had to land the plane.

Both men were taken as prisoners of war.

Paddy Stevens, a historian who researched Capt MacKay for his book College Echoes, said: “When they took off for Germany they wouldn’t have known it was going to be the last day of the war. The Armistice was signed at 5am and both sides were given just six hours’ notice.”

Capt Mackay is buried at Homecourt cemetery in France and there is a memorial to him at his old college.

Calls have now been made for a tribute to him in his homeland.

Scottish Conservative veterans affairs spokesman Maurice Corry MSP said: “Captain Mackay, like so many other young men, gave his life while defending his country.

“We are still indebted to all of those who made the ultimate sacrifice, and it’s only appropriate that we do what we can to commemorate them. I’m sure everyone would support a memorial to Captain MacKay and all of those who have given their lives for this country.”

Historians from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission checked our research and agreed there was no “better candidate” to be named as the last Scot to be killed in the Great War.

A spokesman said that more than 860 servicemen and women died on Armistice Day, although most perished from illness, accidents or wounds received earlier in the conflict.

He added: “Behind that bare statistic is a story of tragedy – of families whose joy at the war’s end was cut brutally short by the death of their loved one.

“No matter where or how they died, it is our honour to commemorate them, and perhaps on this Remembrance Day, given its added poignancy as the 100th anniversary of the end of the Great War, we can all pause and remember these brave souls and their families.”

Several other heroic Scots also lost their lives on November 11, 1918.

Seaman Robert Black Adam, 22, from Glasgow, of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, Anson Battalion, and Private Hugh McGuire, from Lanarkshire, of the 1st Royal Marine Battalion, died after being wounded in action the previous day.

They were injured as the 63rd Royal Naval Division captured the village of Saint Ghislain and the Mons-Givry road in Flanders, with the division’s war diary recording that the fighting continued right up until 10.45am on Armistice Day.

Seaman David Battes, 31, a miner from Lochgelly, Fife, also died fighting with Anson Battalion and is buried at Nouvelles cemetery in Belgium – alongside an Englishman, a Welshman and an Irishman who all lost their lives on Armistice Day. Private John Campbell, from Beith, Ayrshire, with the Cameronians (Scottish Rifles), 8th Battalion, and Corporal Robert Mackie, from Glasgow, with the Black Watch, 1st Battalion, also died of wounds on November 11.

They are buried on the Western Front.

Captain Mackay, like so many other young men, gave his life while defending his country

Maurice Corry MSP

The last British soldier to be killed in action on Armistice Day was Private George Edwin Ellison, from Leeds, who was shot by a sniper at 9.30am while on patrol with the 5th Royal Irish Lancers in Mons.

He has featured in TV documentaries and inspired poems and a memorial plaque in his honour will be unveiled at Leeds railway station later this month.

There was fierce fighting on November 11 involving American soldiers, although by far the heaviest British casualties were borne by a Scottish regiment thousands of miles from the poppy fields of Flanders.

The men of the Royal Scots (Lothian Regiment), 2/10th Battalion, were fighting against the Bolsheviks in Russia and therefore the ceasefire did not apply to them. Their forgotten winter war would continue well into 2019, many months after most other British soldiers had returned home.

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Capt Mackay is buried at Homecourt cemetery in France (Image: NC)

The last Scottish soldiers to be killed in action on the Western Front all died on November 10, many of them as the 52 (Lowland) Division pushed through the villages to the north of Mons in Belgium.

Corporal Alexander Clark, 28, from Kirriemuir, Angus, and Private James Quinn, from Glasgow, died with the Cameronians (Scottish Rifles), 7th Battalion, alongside John Meldrum, originally from Kirkmichael, Banffshire, serving with the Highland Light Infantry. They are all buried at Herchies Cemetery, indicating that they were killed fighting side by side.

According to the battalion’s war diary, the 7th Scottish Rifles received “considerable attention from Bosche artillery” before “the enemy’s resistance was broken at about midnight and by 0100 on the 11th all Coys had reached their final objective”.

At 10.30 the following morning, the diary records the end of the Great War in the following simple terms: “Wire received from Brigade that hostilities would cease at 1100.”

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