| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information:
James White Forrest joined the 1/5th Battalion, Yorkshire Regiment, he enlisted in Scarborough on 4 Sep 1914.
James came from Kirriemuir, Angus, Scotland. He was born 20 Aug 1894, possibly in Scarborough. His parents were William and Mary Forrest, the former a jute mangle worker. He had three sisters Jeannie, Jessie and Maggie. He is not identifiable in the 1911 census but had moved to Beverley and was working as an ironmonger's assistant at Briggs and Powell in Saturday Market, Beverley. He may have been living in Holmechurch Lane or at 5 Flemingate. He was a member of the Territorial Army.
James arrived in France 18 Apr 1915. His Battalion was part of the 150th Brigade, 50th Division and served in Belgium in the Ypres Salient. He was killed in action on 15 Feb 1916 at the infamous Hill 60 in the south east of the Salient in a German attack which started on 12 Feb 1916. Hill 60 was a vantage point with excellent views over Ypres and Comines. It had been formed out of the spoil of a railway cutting on the line from Ypres to Comines and had already been an area of fierce fighting with mining and counter-mining, artillery shelling and sniping as well as foul weather during the winter of 1915-16. Soldiers from Beverley in the East Yorkshire Regiment were also serving nearby in the area, around "the Bluff".
Exactly how James Forrest was killed is not clear in the Regimental War Diary but he was initially buried in the Trench Railway Cemetery (Mem 89). He is now buried at Perth Cemetery (China Wall) near Ypres, Belgium
Includes photograph, information taken from census, military records, Commonwealth War Graves, newspapers |