Cille Choirill's War Graves

We visited Cille Choirrill's peaceful graveyard on our recent trip to Lochaber and, as I do with all the graveyards I visit, I made a point of finding the war graves. This one contains five but another of the war dead is recorded on....

....this headstone. It tells a miserable tale of successive tragedies involving one family: the little boy who died soon after birth, the sister who died aged seventeen, and the brother, Johnnie, who went to war and died "at Normandy".

There are many John MacDonalds on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission's website but I discovered that Johnnie, Service Number 14296896, was a Royal Engineer, a sapper, with the 710 Artisan Works Company who died on 12 July 1944. He was the son of John and Jessie MacDonald of Speanbridge, and was buried at Hermanville war cemetery near Caen in Normandy.

Some of the stories told on the war graves headstones are minimal. This is one of millions scattered across the world and seems scant recognition for a life laid down for his country. Even the record on the CWGC website gives little more: J McArthur was a private in the 4th battalion Cameron Highlanders, he died aged 39, and he was the son of Alexander McArthur, of Achluachrach, Roy Bridge. We're not even told his Christian name, his mother isn't mentioned, and we're not told why he was buried here rather than beside the field of battle.

This is the first CWGC headstone I have seen which a family has taken over and used to record subsequent deaths. That the additional inscriptions are recorded on the CWGC's website indicates that they were added with the Commission's permission. The site has nothing to further tell about Private MacInnes.

As always, the CWGC's headstones are in superb condition despite some of them being over a hundred years old.