EDWARD EASTON - RUSSELL MacGILLIVARY

Original transcription of biography of Edward Easton

7th Battalion  Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders

Service Number: 276360

Date of Death: 3 September 1917 Age at Death: 20

Family: Son of Alexander and Elizabeth Easton, nee Penman, 26 Longdyke

Edward Easton was an employee of Carron Company who enlisted in Alloa for army service on 30 May 1915.

Together with comrades his left for France from Southampton for the Western Front. Whilst fighting in the Battle of the Somme on 23 July 1916, he was wounded in the back and face but returned to his battalion three days later. In April 1917 what is described as an “Old Bullet Wound neck” required almost a week of medical treatment. Five months later, Edward was serving in the northern sector of the Ypres Salient when he was killed during the battle of Passchendaele. A chaplain wrote that “A shell hit a corner of [their] camp where he was on duty with his comrades. He died almost instantaneously.” The battalion war diary confirms that, while in training at Murat Camp, “2 enemy shells burst near Camp killing 3 ORs and wounding 4.” On 27 September that year, Edward’s brother, Andrew, of the 10th Battalion Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders, was reported to have died of wounds on 27 September 1915 and then in November he was reported to be a prisoner of war in Germany – in a camp in Cologne.

EDWARD EASTON

7th Bn.,  Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders

Service Number: 276360

Date of Death: 3 September 1917 Age at Death: 20

Son of Alexander and Elizabeth Easton, nee Penman, 26 Longdyke

Edward was the fifth of Alexander and Elizabeths’ eight children

Like his brothers and his father, Edward was an employee of Carron Company. Like his father and his brothers, Edward was a coal miner working at the William Pit, living in Longcroft village in the shadow of the pit winding wheel.

Edward enlisted in Alloa for army service on 30 May 1915.  The records suggest that Edward had tried to enlist before he was not quite old enough to go to France, and he was posted to the 3/7th Argylls, the training battalion based in Alloa. Officially, soldiers needed to be over 18 to be sent overseas. On the enlistment papers, Edwards “apparent age” was 19, and was 5ft 4in tall. The 3/7th Argylls was holding battalion where recruits would be given basic training and to be progressively prepared as replacements for the fighting across the channel.

Edward’s enlistment came shortly after the 7th Argylls had gone into action at St Julien, part of the Battle of Ypres (22 April-25 May 1915). The battle of St Julien (Sint Juliaan) saw the German’s first use of gas in the attack on, the Colonial French and the Canadian battalions holding the front line at Ypres in Belgium. The sector was supposedly a quiet sector of the front and the surprise attack using gas threw the allies into chaos in the unexpected onslaught. It was therefore most unfortunate that the the Germans launched an attempt to break through the Allied lines at the junction of two French Colonial Divisions and 1st Canadian Division. To add to the impact of the attack the Germans also chose this battle to the first use of asphyxiating gas in the assault in the war with significant effects on the unprepared Allied troops defending the lines. The gas had a significant if short term impact on the Allied defending troops although the Germans appeared to have been surprised by the effectiveness and failed to exploit their advantage.

As a result of the unexpected attack by the Germans, the 7th Argylls which was a second line “Territorial Force” battalion had been prematurely drawn into the fighting suffering significant casualties during the St Julien battle of 24th and 25th of April and the following days. It had been a baptism of fire in the worst sense.

The level of casualties sustained by the 7th Argylls meant that replacements would be necessary, and those replacements would come from soldiers in training depots such as 3/7th Argylls and other recruit and depot battalions, as replacements. The training of recruits in the depots would reflect to some degree the realities of the war over the Channel. Once basic training had been given to the recruits, there would be further training on arrival in France which would include short periods of familiarisation in the front line.

The 7th Battalion Argyll and Sutherland battalion war diary records that 6 officers and 100 other ranks were killed in the action at St Julien, but additionally that 150 men were posted missing in action.  The total number of casualties in the battalion was over 500, around 50% of the battalion.

Records also show that Edward Easton embarked at Southampton on 27th September 1915 and joined up with 7th Argylls “in the field” on 2nd October 1915 which suggests that the replacements underwent further training between landing and joining the battalion. Edward was as one of the many replacements needed to fill the ranks of the fallen .

For Edward, arriving at the battalion will have been something of a bittersweet “homecoming”. The men of 7th Battalion who fought and survived at St Julian will have been familiar to Edward. If he were not meeting men who he had worked with, he would have been meeting men who he had known as a boy and as a young man. And it would be an opportunity to catch up with news from home. A time to mourn friends and comrades. These were men who knew each other well, part of a community at home and a community in the trenches with the battalion. As a result the veterans of St Julien would have assumed a responsibility for the men who had newly arrived, and a responsibility to the folk at home to keep their sons and husbands safe.

The mauling received by 4th Division in the 2nd Battle of Ypres meant that 7th battalion needed to draw on the replacements like Edward. Following the fighting there was an opportunity to rest and recuperate, and the battalion was taken out of the line and went through a necessary process of recovery. Edward was one of the replacements arriving at the battalion.

The phases of fighting around Ypres and the salient between 24th April and 4th May were subsequently named 2nd Battle of Ypres and included the Battles of St. Julien, Frenzenberg and Bellewaarde. Major battles such as 2nd Ypres were just that, but trench warfare meant a continual level of casualties from sniping, from trench raids aimed at gathering intelligence and from mutual harassment by artillery, trench mortars and carelessness. Newcomers to the trenches were particularly prone to death or injury through carelessness or ignorance. And men often died just because they were unlucky.

the 51st (HIGHLAND dIVISION)

The early months of 1916 saw changes for 7th Argylls and the Highland battalions, and the decision was taken to create a specific Highland Division which saw the creation of the 51st Highland Division in March 1916 which included the 7th Argylls.

In March 1916 the newly formed 51st (Highland) Division marched northwards to take over part of the front line originally held by French units. On arrival on the front line, the 51st Division began developing tactics that would enhance the effectiveness of their war fighting.

The relief of the French Divisions was carried out during a blizzard of great severity. When the weather cleared, it was found that the Division had taken over from the French an unintelligible tangle of trenches dug in what can only be described as a vast cemetery in which the earth in many places barely covered the dead[1]

The invasion of France and Belgium had meant that the Germans had had the opportunity of seizing the essential “high ground” where they had the advantage of being able to look down on the allied armies and observe them. This disadvantaged the Allied armies who were literally fighting an uphill battle, with the Germans having a panoramic view of the allied armies.

This situation needed to be addressed. In contrast to the previous occupants of the line, the Highlanders sought to pursue the war with as much commitment as possible. Whilst there were few large-scale actions, the arm-wrestling continued with the general attritional fighting in small actions. This fighting included continuing efforts by both sides to mine under the trenches and explode mines.  The mining was often done by Royal Engineer units, but the mining effort was augmented by using men who had been miners in civilian life. It is likely that Edward Easton and his comrades would have been employed in this role given where he was and what he had been: the exploding of mines appears to have been general rather than occasional and that fighting quite often occurred underground as a way of vigorously prosecuting the war.

The war was also fought at night, and the men of the Highland Division were particularly active in raiding trenches for information and to create any kind of havoc to keep their enemies awake at nights, as did the Germans in their own regard.

An illustration of this was an attack by a party of Germans after they had exploded a mine. The Germans entered a sap and one approached a Jock who had survived the explosion, and pointing his rifle at him said, “Hands up, Englishman!” The infuriated Jock threw a Mills bomb at the German, having failed to remove the safety pin, and shouted, “Scotsman, you f*ing bastard.” The bomb struck the German full on the forehead and felled him. He was captured, and subsequently died in the casualty clearing station from a fractured skull.” Brewsher, p.61

On both sides of the line there was an awareness or assumption that a big offensive would take place, probably in the Spring so both sides operated with the prospect of fighting and battles, with preparations increasing for the coming offensive some time… . In the interim there was the continuing fighting for place or position and operations aimed at straightening the line or squeezing or extending saps into no man’s land to gain advantage or to harry the enemy across no man’s land.

There was never peace, just the grinding sense of approaching death and injury.

THE SOMME

On 1st July 1916, supported by diversionary attacks elsewhere, the long expected Somme offensive began.

The 51st Division was not involved in the first wave on July 1st but was to be part of the second wave.

The Division

The objective of the 51st Division was to take High Wood which was an area of high ground held in part by the Germans who were able to observe movement and operations. The only area not under observation was the valley south of Mametz Wood which was a registered target and used to harass the only way up to High Wood which earning the ironic nickname of Happy Valley

The 7th Argylls moved to forward positions near Flatiron Copse before moving into the front line trenches on 24th July, holding the line for 3 days before returning to bivouacs in the rear.

Edward Easton was wounded in action on 24th July, receiving gunshot wounds to the face and neck. He was evacuated to a field hospital before being sent to hospital Rouen to recover before being moving to Etaples, presumably to convalesce before returning to his battalion on 26th August 1916.

There are no records relating to Edward Easton until April 1917 at Passchendaele when what is described as an “Old Bullet Wound to the neck” at required almost a week of medical treatment.

Edward was killed on 3rd September 1917 whilst serving in the northern sector of the Ypres Salient during the battle of Passchendaele:

A chaplain wrote that “a shell hit a corner of the camp where Edward was on duty with his comrades. “He died almost instantaneously.”

The battalion war diary confirms that, while in training at Murat Camp, “2 enemy shells burst near Camp killing 3 ORs and wounding 4.”

On 27 September, Edward’s brother, Andrew, of the 10th Battalion Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders, was reported to have died of wounds on 27 September 1915. However in November Andrew was reported to be alive, a prisoner of war in Germany in a prison camp in Cologne.