More about Joseph Martin

Joseph Martin   King’s Own Scottish Borderers

LOCHEE SOLDIER WOUNDED.

“THE SIGHTS WERE TERRIBLE.”

Lochee is well represented on Britain’s roll of honour. One more name to be added to the list of men of Dundee’s suburb who are shedding their blood for King and country.

Private Joseph Martin, a King’s Own Scottish Borderer reservist, who lives at 59 Gray Street lies in the Second Eastern General Hospital, Brighton, with a fractured shoulder.

Writing from the hospital to his wife, Private Martin says :—”I write again to tell you that I am back once more in England.  I was shot in the left shoulder, and it was fractured, so I am going through an operation sometime, but when I don’t know.  When I get better, I’ll be home on furlough for six weeks.

“I may tell you I have had a very rough time of it.  I didn’t get a wash or a shave for a month.  I could not tell you any news in the last letter I wrote you, because we were not allowed for fear the Germans would get them.

“When I left home, I went to Dublin.  We stopped there for five days and left for Belgium, and then from there to France.  We had some fighting—hundreds of men lying dead, some with their heads blown off.  The sights were terrible ; I cannot tell you now.”

Private Martin is a calender-worker, and is well-known in Lochee.  The operation he mentions in his letter seems to have been serious, for an answer to a telegram to the hospital authorities, Mrs Martin on Saturday received a wire saying that her husband’s condition was still serious.

Dundee Courier 28th September 1914