John Cameron McLellan was born at Dumfries on the 20th June 1899 and I interviewed him at The Royal Hospital, Chelsea in January 1982. Enlisting in the 2/5th KOSB in November 1914, it was not until 1918 that he went to France.
"When my battalion got to its war strength, I was transferred from Dumfries where the
battalion was formed, to a holding battalion in Catterick Camp, Yorkshire . My
number with the KOSB was 2538 but when I got to this holding battalion I was given
the number 240801 and that was in the 12th Provisional Battalion, a training
battalion. I stayed there until March
1918 when I was old enough to go to France
"When
I got to France France ,
mostly in the Armentieres
"We
had been out on rest on the outskirts of Courtrai
– big city there. And we were lying – at least I was with several others – on
the top floor of an old building. All the fan lights had been painted black,
the village seemed to be almost deserted, there were very few people in the
village and there was no light anywhere.
"We
were getting to bed or lying down on the floor on a palliasse – a sack full of
straw – somewhere between nine and ten roughly and I heard a set of pipes
playing. Well at that time of night it was a most unusual occurrence so I
cocked my ear and listened and picked up the regimental march of the KOSB: the
blue bonnets are over the border. This
was so unusual I had to find out why so I said right, put the bloody lights
out. The lights were candles stuck in
bottles here and there so they blew the lights out and I lifted one of the
skylights and where before the village had been in total darkness it was now
just a blaze of light. All the windows
were lit up, doors were open, the street was full of civilians and soldiers
shouting and singing. And out of the
noise I picked up the words “Guerre finis” which means “war finished” in
French. And I turned to the lads and I
said, “Hey, they say the bloody war’s finished.” So we quickly pulled on some
trousers and we could still hear these pipes going up and down and when I got
downstairs it was the pipe major of the 6th Battalion who was walking up and
down and he’d only got his shirt on, his Glengarry and a pair of boots, and he
was playing the regimental march.
"Well
eventually he was going down towards the end of the street and everybody sort
of got behind him because at the bottom of the street was a big house, a big
mansion, and that was regimental headquarters and the officers’ mess. So we got
into the forecourt there, dragged him in, still playing, and eventually the
commanding officer and the adjutant came out on a balcony on the first floor.
He held his hands up [and] eventually he got peace and he more or less said,
“Well lads, I’ve got some news for you. We have been informed that the Germans
have agreed to sign an armistice at eleven o’clock tomorrow morning. That means to say the war is finished.”
"Well
one mighty cheer went up and that was it.
I think everybody got pie-eyed.
Where the wine came from I don’t know but it seemed to appear from
nowhere. Well that was it. The next day we should have been going up the
line [but] we got the orders to stand fast and eventually we were re-kitted
with new clothing, new equipment and we echeloned up with the Americans right
up into Germany with the Army of Occupation.
"I
stayed with the KOSB until 1919 when, because I could speak German, I was
transferred to the Military Mounted Police [number P19145] for duty on the border in
collaboration with the German Mounted Police.
I was with them a year and a half and then I was transferred to the
Special Investigation Branch and I became a detective for the next seven
years. I then went back to the uniformed
police and I finished up in 1939 as Regimental Sergeant Major in Egypt
John McLellan died in November 1989 aged 90.
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