30 / 44
28
battle of loos
MANY YEARS LIVED IN 14 HOURS
Finally, orders were given to consolidate the position and dig
in on a line just below the western crest of the hill.
Private Liddell, 7th Cameron Highlanders, compared 44th Brigade’s
tenacious defence of Hill 70 with one of the greatest examples
of Scottish military valour. ‘The Thin Red Line was a glorious
thing but the thin line of the Brigade on Hill 70 was as glorious
if not, more so, holding at bay thousands of Germans...
We stuck on the Hill for 14 hours, and I lived many years in that
time’.
44
The 44th Brigade had captured some four lines of German
trenches, Loos village, and was holding the western crest of Hill
70, but had lost 75 per cent of its overall strength. It was in
no condition to continue to hold its gains for a prolonged period,
and was relieved in the early hours of 26 September.
The 9th Black Watch had gone into
action with some 940 men. When it
arrived at Philosophe at 3.30 a.m.
only about 95 returned.
In the opinion of Major Stewart, ‘By God’s grace alone we stood
it’.
45
Sergeant Isaac Green, a native of Old Kilpatrick in
Dunbartonshire, was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal for
his part in the battle. Describing the morning of 26 September,
he wrote ‘About a company was gathered together, out of a whole
battalion. An English regiment relieved them, and when what was
left of the 9th Black Watch got back to Quality Street (where
the charge started) the Guards thought they were a company of
some regiment. When told that they were all that remained of
a battalion tears could be seen in many a stalwart Guardsman’s
eyes’.
46
The 9th Black Watch had suffered the heaviest
casualties of any battalion of the regiment in any conflict.