Military

THE SUN shone on a moving ceremony in Helensburgh on Sunday November 4 2018, which marked the supreme bravery of a Helensburgh man 100 years ago in the First World War.

George de Cardonnel Elmsall Findlay was awarded the Victoria Cross, Britain's highest military award for gallantry, in recognition of his exceptional leadership in the fields of France on November 4 1918, just a week before the end of the war.

A YOUNG Helensburgh flyer — whose father became the town’s Provost — lost his life in a World War One dogfight in northern France just weeks after becoming engaged.

A HELENSBURGH man suffered the ordeal of being torpedoed and spending almost a fortnight in a lifeboat during World War Two.

JULY 1916 was a bad World War One month for Helensburgh, with two well-known young officers losing their lives in very different ways.

Royal Flying Corps pilot Lieutenant George Maxwell Vereker Bidie died in a flying accident at Whitstable, Kent, on July 8, and seven days later 2nd Lieutenant Alfred Anthony Douglas Raeburn (right) of the 9th Highland Light Infantry Glasgow Highlanders was killed in action at the Battle of the Somme.

A TALENTED rugby player whose parents lived in Helensburgh and who was selected by both Scotland and England lost his life early in World War One when his Royal Navy cruiser was torpedoed.

Surgeon James Henry Digby Watson was the son of Engineer Captain James Herbert Watson RN and his wife Eliza Viets Smith, of Westwood House, 17 Glasgow Street.

A GARELOCHHEAD villager was torpedoed twice in World War Two — and lived to tell both tales.

That was exactly what James Reeves did when Helensburgh Heritage Trust prepared a DVD in which local people recalled interesting memories of the war.