thompson

More details here: mountainaflame.blogspot.com/2013/06/captain-augustus-c-th...

George Thomson not THOMPSON
Number: 12215
Rank: Corporal, later Acting Sergeant
Unit: 2nd Battalion, King's Own Scottish Borderers
Born: Brydekirk
Enlisted: Annan, August 1914
Home: Brydekirk, by Annan
Died: 18th April 1918. Aged 25
Buried: St Venant-Robecq Road British Cemetery, Robecq, France
Notes: Commemorated on the family headstone in Annan Churchyard
DCM Gazetted: 6th February 1918
Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty in working round the flank and capturing an enemy strong point which was holding up the company. In it were about fifty of the enemy. He afterwards beat off with loss all counter-attacks on his trench.

George Thomson was born in Brydekirk by Annan in Dumfriesshire c. 1893. He enlisted into the King's Own Scottish Borderers, as a Regular soldier, No 12215, in August 1914 at Annan. He was killed in action on Thursday 18th April 1918 when an Acting Serjeant.
He is commemorated on the Lockerbie war Memorial and on his family gravestone in Annan churchyard.
2 KOSB were in 13th Brigade, 5th Division throughout the war from 4th August 1914 to 11 November 1918. 5th Division fought at the Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele) 26 Oct-10 Nov 1917, was then briefly transferred to fight in Italy in December but was quickly returned to France when the German Spring Offensive erupted in March 1918, fighting at Hazebrouck 12-15 April 1918, including actions in defence of Hirges Ridge and the Nieppe Forest.//

2 KOSB was a Regular Army battalion, stationed in Dublin in August 1914. They went straight to France with the BEF, arriving at Le Havre on 15 August 1914. At whatever point George Thomson joined them he would, by the time this photograph was taken, have seen a lot of hard fighting. This photograph is remarkably different - there is no innocence in it - this is a hardened, fighting man. A survivor - rumpled stockings, 'fag' in his hand - the sort of determined, reliable, experienced NCO, defiant in the face of the enemy who kept his battalion on its feet as war swept away other men and new drafts of replacements arrived.

In September 1917, 2 KOSB were again sent into battle in the loathed Polderhoek sector at the southern extremity of the appalling Passchendaele battlefield.

Abridged from "The K.O.S.B. in the Great War" by Captain Stair Gillon; Nelson, London 1930

"5th Division had eventually relieved the 23rd Division in trenches near Polygon Wood during the night of 27 Sep. The men of 2 KOSB had begun to make their preparations for the assault on Polderhoek Chateau during the night of 1 Oct when the battalion had left their billets at Berthen to march, via Bailleul and Locre, to Dickebusch, where the formation had made their final preparations for the operation. …’they fitted out elaborately and weightily with extra rations, bombs, tools etc., and marched across the Comines Canal and Messines Road to Bedford House ... After a halt of four hours the relief of the support lines of the 70th Infantry Brigade in the Stirling Castle area, a long mile west of Polderhoek, was accomplished at 1am on the 2nd. Here they were vigorously shelled all day, and that night relieved the 8th York and Lancasters on a two company front in trenches that were still worse shelled’

During the rain filled night of 3rd October the officers and men of 2nd KOSB, no doubt warmed slightly with a generous tot of pre-battle rum had slipped silently out of their forward trenches to a taped ‘advance position’ in ‘No Man’s Land’, where they had waited for Zero Hour."

This attack at Broodseinde was intended to capture Polderhoek Chateau (by then reduced to no more than a pile of smashed brick rubble), considered ‘vital ground’ to a further attack on Gheluvelt. The Polderhoek spur had been pounded into a morass of bottomless slurry filled shellholes. In heavy rain at first light, 6am, on 4th October 1917, 2nd KOSB and 1st Royal West Kents, having fought off a German attack during the night, assaulted their objective across 600 yards of churned mud, assaulting into a hail of retaliatory artillery and machine-gun fire. 2nd KOSB took so many casualties that they were all but annihilated but took their ‘objective’, if such a term may be given to it, dug in 200 yards west of the Chateau, and then denied 8 counter-attacks through the night of 5/6 October, until they were eventually relieved by 15th Brigade. Only 90 unwounded men of 2nd KOSB were fit to march back. These were the circumstances in which Corporal Thomson won his DCM.//

The Lockerbie war memorial can be seen on the Scottish War Memorials Project page here:

warmemscot.s4.bizhat.com/viewtopic.php?t=1019&mforum=...

The 1901 census for Annan shows a George Thomson born at Tundergarth (near Lockerbie). He was living with his mother, Maggie, and 5 brothers at Creca. His father was George Thomson, an Agricultural Labourer.

This one is really worth 1,000 words!!! I'd love to know his story!!!

Kristen Davis Newpaper account: "BURGLARY AT NORTH SHIELDS -- SMART SENTENCES -- To-day, at North Shields, Alfred Thompson, a painter, and John Reay, a labourer, were charged with stealing three hens, a cock and fifteen pigeons, valued £9 6d, the property of George Bolam, from a garden at Ropery Banks on Aug 31st; a further stealing a padlock valued a shilling, the property of John Patterson. Thompson was further charged with assaulting P.C. Taylor at the same time and place. George Bolam, residing at Waldow Street, stated that he rented a garden. On Saturday he left the place secure. There were four hens and a cock there and fifteen pigeons. When he went back on Sunday morning he found the place had been broken into and all the pigeons and cock and hens were gone. He valued them at £9 6s. Afterwards he identified the dead birds produced at the police station. His garden was next to Borough Road. P.C. Taylor stated early on Sunday morning he was on duty at the Ropery Banks and heard a noise in Balam's garden. On going there he saw the two defendants. Thompson was outside of the pigeon house with a bag, and the other defendant, who was inside the house, was killing the birds and passing them out. He followed the defendants and took them into custody. On searching them at the Police Station, he found several padlocks and keys upon them. Reay's hands were covered with blood. Sergt. Proud deposed to taking 24 keys from Thompson. There were several skeleton keys amongst them which opened the locks at the garden. P.C. Taylor stated when he charged the defendants on Sunday night Thompson replied, "That's right," and Reay said, "I say the same." Both defendants pleaded guilty, and said thy were under the influence of drink at the time. John Patterson, a cartman, said he had a stable at Ropery Banks. When he went on Sunday morning he found that the doors ahd been opened and the padlocks missing. Sergt. Proud deposed to taking a padlock form Thompson's pocket. When charged by P.C. Taylor, Thompson replied, "I had it in my pocket when I was locked up." Reay replied, "I was with him." Upon the third charge, P.C. Taylor stated that when he took Thompson into custody he seized him by the shoulders, forced him back against one of the wooden sheds, and kicked him several times about the legs. Both the men were sober at the time. Thompson persisted in saying that he was under the influence of drink at the time, or he wouldn't have been there. Upon the first charge defendants were committed to prison for two months, on the second charge one month each, and for the assault Thompson was committed for fourteen days; the sentences to follow each other." ---Shields Daily Gazette, 1 Sep 1902, page 3 Here's his partner in crime: