Military

CARDROSS has the unusual — and possibly unique for a village — distinction of having been home to two winners of the Victoria Cross, Britain’s highest award for gallantry.

The better known of the two was Lieutenant John Reginald Noble Graham, who lived with his parents at Darleith in the village before and after World War One.

A CARDROSS soldier who later moved to Helensburgh had an astonishing military career before, during and after the First World War.

Angus McPherson, who was born in the village on December 10 1890, went on to win the Distinguished Conduct Medal, the Military Cross, and the Distinguished Service Order before leaving the Army on January 27 1921.

A POPPY Cross was not placed at the war memorial on Rhu village green on Remembrance Sunday 2017 — but it was not far away.

The cross, in memory of those who were killed serving with RAF Helensburgh during World War Two, was placed at the nmemorial in Kidston Park, erected in the summer, overlooking its former Rhu Hangers base.

JUST over 80 years ago, what is probably Britain’s best known flying boat, the Shorts Sunderland, made its maiden flight — and the seaplane was to play an important part in the Helensburgh and Dumbarton areas.

The prototype aircraft K 4774 gave the name Sunderland to the new specification R22/36 aircraft.

MEMORIES of the night Cardross was bombed when she was ten years-old are still fresh for a villager who now lives in America.

Patricia Lockhart, now Mrs McInnis, left Scotland for Canada in 1956, and has lived in San Diego, California, since 1960.

IT HAS always been something of a puzzle why Cardross, a small harmless village, should so incur the wrath of the mighty Luftwaffe over the night of May 5 1941.

Could the World War Two bombing of the village have happened because of mistaken identity?

A CARDROSS army officer with a shipbuilding background died instantly when he was hit by a shell on the Belgian Western Front in during World War One.

Captain William Beardmore Stewart, of Auchenfroe in the village, was killed in action on May 24 1917 at the age of 33, and is buried at Reninghelst New Military Cemetery near Ypres.

ONE of the best known Helensburgh men to die in action on the front in the first two years of World War One was a 39 year-old with twenty years service.

Lieutenant James Francis Marsland MC, known to his friends as Jim, was serving with ‘C’ Company of the 2nd Battalion (109th Foot) the Leinster Regiment (Prince of Wales’s Royal Canadians).

A YOUNG Cardross man who volunteered twice in World War One lost his life shortly after entering a trench with his platoon.

Second Lieutenant Frank Ritchie was killed in action near the village of Givenchy in Pas-de-Calais on May 25 1915 at the age of 22.

A PUPIL at the then St Bride’s School in Helensburgh — now Lomond School — became an intelligence officer and played an important part in the battle against German U-boats in the Second World War.

Caroline Chojecki MBE, who died on September 24 2017 aged 96, was born Caroline Elizabeth Rowett on November 11 1920, to John Quiller Rowett and his wife Helen, nee Coats, one of three children.

A PHOTO of a military man found in a shop in Inverness in 2012 sparked a search which led to Helensburgh — and to a tragic First World War tale.

Now the same man is featuring again in a new search for information.

RESEARCHING an act of generosity produced a fascinating link to Helensburgh’s past.