John Ballantyne

Killed in Action on the 23/10/1916 during the Battles of the Somme

The Battalion arrived at Boulogne on the 22/08/1914 and were part of the 10th Brigade, 4th Division. John arrived on the 01/06/1915. John's Division took part in this Battle just before he was Killed in Action. It was part of the Somme Offensive started on the 01/07/1916. The Battle of Le Transloy, 1st - 18th October 1916 : A period of fighting in terrible weather in which the heavy, clinging, chalky Somme mud and the freezing, flooded battlefield became as formidable an enemy as the Germans. The British gradually pressed forward, still fighting against numerous counterattacks, in an effort to have the front line on higher ground from which the offensive could be renewed in 1917. SEE PHOTOS x 12 FOR THE BATTALION WAR DIARY FROM SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 1916. On the 23/10/1916 casualty list from the War Diary : 3 Officers Killed in Action, 5 Officers Wounded in Action, 14 Other Ranks Killed in Action, 124 Other Ranks Wounded in Action. John was 1 of the 14 Killed on this day. This was part of the Battles of the Somme, 1st July - 18th November 1916 : A Franco-British offensive that was undertaken after Allied strategic conferences in late 1915, but which changed its nature due to the German attack against the French in the epic Battle of Verdun, which lasted from late February to November. Huge British losses on the first day and a series of fiercely contested steps that became attritional in nature. For all armies on the Western Front it was becoming what the Germans would call "materialschlacht" : a war not of morale, will or even manpower, but of sheer industrial material might. The 15th September 1916 saw the first-ever use of tanks in the step known as the Battle of Flers-Courcelette. The British army in France is now approaching its maximum strength in numbers but is still developing in terms of tactics, technology, command and control. John is also remembered on the Coatbridge Co-Op x 3 and Blairhill United Free Churches Rolls of Honour x 1 and at the Family Plot in New Monkland Cemetery (see photos). See photos for John's Medal Index Card, his CWGC Grave Registration, his name on the Ireland Casualties of WW1 list, his Army Register of Soldiers Effects, his Service Medal and Award Rolls, his name on the Thiepval Memorial x 3, John's Pension Records x 2 and the Royal Dublin Fusiliers Cap Badge. Finally, see photos for Newspaper clippings x 6 (Coatbridge Express x 4 and Airdrie and Coatbridge Advertiser x 2), the 4th Division Order of Battle x 12 (the Division he was with when he died), another Newspaper clipping from the Airdrie and Coatbridge Advertiser 25/10/1919 and another 2 photos of John's name on the Thiepval Memorial kindly donated by my friend in France, Thierry Dericbourg.