"LONG JOHNS" with a KILT ????

[Lachlan07]

Hi there.

Trade secret coming up ! My Great Uncle David Robertson (S/9365) served as L/Cpl with the 8th Batt Black Watch, 9th Scottish Div in the Great War. At home we still have his YMCA letter from the Western Front, sent home to his parents in Musselburgh, Midlothian dated December 1915. Apart from family questions home, Dave mentioned in the one-page letter that he was stationed in a sap (a cul-de-sac length of trench dug out from the main trench into No-Man's Land as a listening-post). He mentioned the intense, bitter cold, being stationary, cold and damp in a trench in mid-winter for days at a time. He then asked his mother to send over his old gardening trousers, so he could cut them off at the knees to wear under his kilt !

In fact, an order of 1916 ordered Highland battalions to wear standard British khaki issue long trousers and puttees during the coldest part of winter. Various photos show Highlanders in trousers in winter. (Apart from that, of course, transport personnel of Highland regiments always wore trousers.)

Great Uncle Dave didn't have to suffer every winter like that. He was killed on the first day of the Third Battle of The Scarpe/Arras, on 3rd May 1917, when his battalion and division took their turn to assault the Chemical Works at Roeux. He has no known grave, but is mentioned on Panel 6 of the Arras Memorial.