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| A. J. Macmillan Kershader School |
(Habost, Kershader, Garyvard and Caversta.)
Population last Census, 366 (Males, 183 ; Females, 183).
ON the outbreak of war in August, 1914, 41 men from this School District, which comprises the villages of Caverstay, Garyvard, Kershader, and Habost, were already attached to various units of the Services, and were immediately mobilised. Others began to join up with the first call for men by Lord Kitchener, and the number of men serving finally totalled 106. This is slightly over 30 per cent, of the population, and nearly 59 per cent, of the total male population. They were almost equally distributed between the land and sea forces, 51 of them being connected with the Navy and 55 with the Army.
They were drawn from various parts of the country and of the Empire. Several were Canadians, two came from Australia, and one from far New Zealand. One man travelled all the way from South America to join up. There was one man in the U.S. Navy, and another in the Canadian Navy.
They saw service in almost every theatre of operations on land and sea, in the battlefields of France and Flanders, in Gallipoli, in Salonica, in Mesopotamia and Syria. They took part in most of the Naval operations. The Dogger Bank the fight of the Carmania, the battle of the Falklands, the Ostend and Zeebrugge operations, and the Dardanelles, to mention a few, are names that will conjure up stirring memories in the breasts of many of our sailors ; and no less stirring are the memories of those who, by their unceasing vigilance, kept the sea routes open to our commerce amid the terrors and the hidden dangers of the mine and the submarine. What an entrancing tale each has to tell if space could but permit.
The list includes the names of many who received promotion, several being non-commissioned officers, mates, leading seamen and gunners, and one Warrant Officer, R.N. Two of the outstanding names on the list are Major Donald Macleod, and his brother Captain K. K. Macleod. The latter was awarded the Military Cross for the part he played in storming the Hohenzollern Redoubt. The wound he then received incapacitated him for further service, and thus a military career of great promise was prematurely brought to a close. Other decorations were the D.S.M. for Roderick Macdonald, 6 Kershader, for the sinking of a German submarine, and the R.R.C. for Sister Annabella N. Macleod, 5 Kershader, who saw a very great deal of service in the Casualty Clearing Stations in France. A number of men have a claim to the Mons Star and other war medals.
The number of fatalities was 17, being 16 per cent, of those serving, and the announcement of each was received with deep sorrow and sympathy by the whole community. They were all young and in their prime, and many of them were mere boys. Three of them were married, one of whom left a young family of eight, all of them below 16. Three men were lost in the ill-starred "Iolaire," on the dreadful morning of the 1st of January, 1919. These were Angus Montgomery, 2 Garyvard ; Alex. Macleod, 1 Garyvard, and Angus Mackinnon, 4 Caverstay. Even then the list was not complete.
Another blow was yet to fall, for intimation was received by Mr Donald Macleod, 2 Habost, that his youngest son, Malcolm, who was then being expected home demobilised, was accidentally killed in Beja Hospital, Hungary, on 9th July, 1919. This was felt to be one of the most distressing fatalities of the war, and the hearts of all went out in sympathy to the bereaved family who had thus lost a second son in the war.
And what of those who were left at home—the fathers and mothers, the wives and brothers and sisters ? Will the memory of those days ever depart from them ? Can they ever erase from their memories the weary vigil, the long drawn out days and nights of anxiety and anguish, the fluctuating hopes and fears, and the hopes for ever abandoned? Truly, their lot was none too easy to bear.
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