In World War One, friends signed up and served together, shoulder to shoulder. This was good for morale but it could also have the devastating effect that one burst of machine gun fire could hit scores of men from the same village and destroy a community.
A territorial army force was set up on Skye in the years before the war. Twenty-eight of the Skye territorials lived within sight of Portree harbour. When war was declared they were all mobilised and prepared to leave their Highland home. The Portree men, as part of the Cameron Highlanders, spent six months in Bedford in the south of England before being sent to France in February 1915.
In March 1915, armed only with Lee Enfield rifles, they faced German machine gun fire for the first time at Neuve-Chapelle. The Germans had invested heavily in producing machine guns and had studied well the most effective way to use them at devastating cost to the Allies. The battle of Neuve-Chapelle was a strategic failure at great cost. Overall 11,000 troops were killed, wounded or missing, including Portree man Private John Kennedy, who worked for MacBrayne’s Ferries.
Two months later the Portree men were ordered up to Festubert to hold the German line. At 6.30pm on 17 May, the Portree and Kingussie companies joined up on the left. On the right were two companies for the Bedford regiment. An hour later the order was given for them to charge and as soon as they stepped forward they were engaged by machine gun fire.
In that one night at Festubert 10 of the Portree men died.
Twenty-eight men from Portree, a band of brothers, had left the town’s harbour at the start of the war. Only eight would survive the war.
Alex Campbell
Fortrose Academy // Cromarty Community Rowing Club
He has a cat, he grew up on a farm on the Black Isle. He’s got insane strength for being such a young man, he can pull the boat in all by himself when he’s down the beach rowing.
He worked with the Studio for a month and represented the story he drew in his artwork.
