This account is based mainly on details given in the autobiography of the Rev Charles L.Warr, “The Glimmering Landscape” (1960).
Charles Warr (1892-1969) was the second son of the Rev Alfred Warr, parish minister at Rosneath from 1887 until his death in 1916. When Charles graduated in arts from Edinburgh University in the summer of 1914, war was just about to break out.
A YOUNG Helensburgh pilot died on active service at Flanders in World War One . . . and was hailed a hero.
Robert Martin lost his life in September 1917. His obituary stated: “He performed some heroic deeds in connection with the recent air raids worthy of the highest honour.”
A HELENSBURGH man’s daring in World War Two was recognised in October 2014 with the award of the Arctic Star.
Lieutenant Commander Alan Miller of the Clyde Division Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, who died aged 93 in 2008, won the Distinguished Service Cross in 1942.
HOW, when and why the Marine Aircraft Experimental Establishment based itself at Helensburgh and Rhu during World War Two is well documented, but the Gareloch was also a seaplane base during World War One.
Retired Merseyside newspaper editor Robin Bird, who has written two books about what was officially named RAF Helensburgh from 1939-45, has uncovered information about a Royal Naval Air Station Helensburgh in the Great War.
THE memory of a Helensburgh man named on the Cenotaph in Hermitage Park as losing his life in World War One was honoured in Australia in August 2014 — and will be again.
On the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of what is known as the ‘Great War’, a poppy was placed beside the plaque on the Australian War Memorial in Canberra bearing the name of Corporal Ian Stewart Campbell.
A WORLD War Two code breaker from Helensburgh has told of ducking from bombs and being chased by geese during her time working in secret underground bunkers at the famous Bletchley Park.
Mrs Betty Balfour, 87, signed up to the Wrens aged 17 and attended the Government Code and Cipher School before being stationed at the Milton Keynes facility — home of the Enigma machine.
BRITAIN declared war on August 4 1914, and that day the Helensburgh Company of the 9th Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders were on the march.
On Monday August 34 2014 the commemorations of the 100th anniversary of the ‘Great War’ began, and many a local family recalled with pride, and often sorrow, the part relatives played in the conflict.
SATURDAY March 15 2014 was the 70th anniversary of the fatal crash of a flying boat which took off from the Gareloch off Rhu Hangars.
An expert on the design of hulls of flying boats was on board on a cold and frosty morning when the top-secret experimental aircraft took off from the Marine Aircraft Experimental Establishment at what was then called RAF Helensburgh.
A German prisoner of war who was imprisoned at the POW Camp at Stuckenduff, Shandon, from 1946-7 wrote this account specially for Helensburgh Heritage Trust in January 2014.
My story about Normandy during D-Day and My Subsequent Imprisonment in America and Scotland
I will begin in December 1943 in Thorn, West Prussia, when my military training ended.
THE FIRST Argyll and Sutherland Highlander to be wounded in Flanders in World War One was shot in the big toe on his way to a trench.
Helensburgh-born Sergeant Adam Bain Paton, of A Company, 1/9th Argylls, was shot on March 7 1915 while on active duty at the front — and went to reach the rank of Major.
HELENSBURGH had a military hospital in Hermitage Park during World War One.
Hermitage House and its grounds, now Hermitage Park and the War Memorial, originally were adjacent to the Malig Mill, at the rear of the Victoria Hall, and the Mill’s Lade, a lake where Hermitage Bowling Club now stands. In the Great War the house became an Auxiliary Military Hospital.
THE YEAR of 2014 marks the centenary of the start of World War One, and many men from Helensburgh and district lost their lives in the extraordinary conflict.
One is particularly remembered in the annals of the local regiment, the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, as he was the first man in the 1/9th Battalion to die in Flanders during the Great War.
