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Alexander Gilruth

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Alexander Gilruth

Military Information

  • Date of enlistment:
  • Place of enlistment:
  • Service no: 11396
  • Rank: Private
  • Service Occupation:
  • Awards:
  • Regiment/Service: Highland Light Infantry
  • Unit/Ship:

Personal Information

  • Date of Birth: 1892
  • Place of Birth:
  • Address: 14 Charlotte Pl, Rose St, Dundee
  • Occupation: Soldier
  • Mother:
  • Father:
  • Siblings:
  • Spouse:
  • Children:
  • Age at Death:
  • Date of Death:
  • Place of Death:
  • Burial Country:
  • Cemetery:

More about Alexander Gilruth

Alexander Gilruth  11396  Highland Light Infantry

OPTIMISTIC DUNDEE SOLDIER

SENDS HOME CHEERY LETTER, THOUGH WOUNDED.

Private Alexander Gilruth, a Dundee member of the Highland Light Infantry, will have good cause to remember the deadly effects of the German artillery fire.

He lies in the 5th Eastern Division General Hospital, Portsmouth, recovering from a wound caused by a shell from one of the German big guns.

Writing to his sisters, who live in Hilltown, Private Gilruth in a letter dated Sunday, 8th inst., says:—“I got wounded, but tell mother and father to cheer up.  I will soon get better again and back to the front.  I am just as happy as ever.  It was a big gun that got me.  “It is all right out there, but all the time we think of our fathers and mothers and sisters and brothers.  We pass a lot of jokes in the trenches, but it always comes out.  Never mind!  We have all got to go some way or another, so let’s hope for the best. “We have lots of music from the Germans.  They have all kinds of musical instruments, and they played all day Sunday till our guns got them, then there was a move on, I can tell you.  We gave them a decent fight for it, but they seemed to come up fresh every day.”

Private Gilruth is 23 years of age, and he has been in the H.L.I. for six years.

Dundee Courier 17th November 1914

Information and image kindly supplied by Michael Caldwell

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