Looking Back with Ian Scott - Bo’ness remembers missing men of First World War

But as they worked through military and family records and newspaper files, they discovered that there were very many local soldiers whose names could and should have been on the memorial but do not appear. A couple of years earlier Russell MacGillivray in Larbert had come across the same thing and later told the stories of the missing men in a second volume of his excellent book on Larbert in World War One. Now we have a second volume for Bo’ness which fills in many gaps, adding 110 names to the roll of honour of those who lost their lives.

In Bo’ness, as in Larbert, there were some easy to find examples. The local cemeteries had many gravestones erected by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission bearing the familiar regimental badges. Then there were family stones giving the names of sons or fathers who had died fighting abroad. The local newspapers also carried obituaries and photographs of many soldiers inserted by their families. Many of these do not appear on the memorial and the authors began to search for their stories and to try to find out why their names were omitted.

Back in the immediate post war years villages and towns organised committees of the ‘great and the good’ – local business leaders, churchmen, ex-military officers and the like – to promote the idea of war memorials. In the end Falkirk District raised 17 and each area developed its own method of collecting the names of the fallen. Churches, workplaces, societies, sports clubs and families submitted lists of names and the committees decided who was to be included.

By all accounts this was a bit haphazard and no doubt many names were missed through administrative error. But there were other reasons. Many heartbroken wives and mothers would not accept that their men were dead, instead clinging to the hope that ‘Missing in Action, Presumed Killed’ was wrong and that they would appear from German prison camps or hospital wards at home or abroad. There were also families who blamed the authorities, the politicians and military leaders who had sent their fathers and sons to their deaths for no good reason and wanted nothing more to do with war and all its evils.

Then there were problems of where exactly the soldiers came from. Were they local or had they emigrated many years before and fell while serving with Canadian or Australian regiments? Should they be included on the Bo’ness Memorial? Some were and some were not.

The new book answers many questions and gives accounts of the lives and service records of these men so that they can take their place in our remembrance. We are carried as readers through the bloody fields of Flanders, the hell of Gallipoli and the unforgiving dark waters of the North Sea where many young Bo’ness men perished. The book is called ‘Without Fear: A Supplementary Volume’ and runs to over 300 pages. It is available from Waterstones in Falkirk, Inkspot and Silverleaf bookshop in South Street Bo’ness, Falkirk Local History Society (01324 627692) or the Bo’ness Town Trust Association.