John James McCafferty

In August 1914 the Battalion were in Ambala, India. They were part of the 9th (Sirhind) Brigade in the 3rd (Lahore) Division. They moved to France via Egypt, landing at Marseilles on the 01/12/1914 (some weeks after the other Brigades of the Division). John arrived in France with the 2nd Battalion Highland Light Infantry on the 22/08/1914. John was Killed in Action during the Attack on the Dujailah Redoubt, 7th - 9th March 1916 : The first attempts to relieve the siege at Kut had failed in January, despite some minor successes along the Tigris. The head of the relief expedition, General Aylmer, decided to try again in early March, before expected floods on the Tigris would make movement of troops far more difficult. His plan was to attack to the south of the Tigris, bypassing the marshes along the river. If successful, he would across the Tigris from the forces at Kut, who were preparing bridges for a sortie from the city. Aylmer planned a ten-mile night march towards the main Turkish obstacle on his line of approach'the redoubt at the Dujaila depression. He hoped his troops, arriving and attacking at dawn, would have total surprise and could quickly overwhelm the Turkish defenders. However, the night march did not proceed as quickly as planned; they did not start until 10:20 PM on March 7th, and there were further delays in separating support from infantry columns. By dawn around 5:40 AM, the British Indian forces were still over two miles from the Turkish lines at Dujaila. Aylmer believed the element of surprise had been lost and did not want to risk a two-mile attack over open ground. This was despite reports from scouts indicating that the Turkish trenches were essentially empty. Many of the Turkish defenders around Kut had been transferred north to fight the Russians in Persia or the Caucasus after the loss of Erzurum, leaving the lines at Dujaila essentially denuded. Aylmer instead brought up his guns and began an artillery barrage at 7AM, which proceeded for the next three hours. This was the first the Turkish commander in the area, Ali Ihsan Bey, had heard of the British advance, and he quickly told his artillery and machine guns to rush to the area and “answer the enemy artillery and to fire on any enemy troops as they marched. He recalled that "The enemy did not send their infantry forward while their artillery was firing on us. We benefited from this mistake and all of our troops managed to arrive in time". When the infantry attacked at 10AM, they now took heavy casualties from the newly arrived Turkish forces. One Turkish veteran, Abidin Ege, recalled "The distance between us and the enemy was only 800 meters. Both sides started firing and the battle began. The enemy made every effort to reach us, but their forces were melting under the heat of our fire". A renewed attack in the afternoon briefly reached the redoubt itself but was repulsed; the British suffered nearly 3500 casualties out of his 18,000-man force. On the other side, Abidin Ege wrote that "We had an absolute victory against the enemy, yet we lost half of our Battalion". The British withdrew that night in disarray. SEE PHOTOS x 8 FOR THE BATTALION WAR DIARY 1st - 9th MARCH 1916. ALSO SEE PHOTOS x 1 FOR BRITISH CASUALTIES 8th - 9th MARCH 1916. John is also remembered on the St. Patrick's Church Roll of Honour (see photos) and in the St. Augustine's Parish (book) Roll of Honour. See photos for John's Medal Index Card, his Newspaper clipping, his Army Register of Soldiers Effects x 2, his Service Medal and Award Rolls, his Pension Records x 3, his name on the Basra Memorial, the Highland Light Infantry Cap Badge, the CWGC Basra Memorial Roll of Honour x 3 and John's name in the CWGC Basra Memorial Roll of Honour.