Content deleted Content added
removed Category:Sportspeople from Glasgow; added Category:Footballers from Glasgow using HotCat |
Supaidaman0 (talk | contribs) Tags: Mobile edit Mobile app edit Android app edit |
||
Line 92:
At the end of the [[1914-15 in English football|1914–15]] season, Speirs returned to his native Glasgow and enlisted in the [[Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders]] on 17 May 1915.<ref name="markham"/><ref name="highlanders">{{cite web|url=http://jimmy-speirs.co.uk/13005.html|title=Cameron Highlanders|accessdate=4 July 2008|publisher=jimmyspeirs.co.uk}}</ref> [[Conscription]] was a year away, from which Speirs would have been exempt because he was married with two young children. Private S/18170 Speirs was posted to the regiment's headquarters in Inverness where he joined the 3rd Battalion, a reserve battalion, for training.<ref name="highlanders"/> He was appointed to the position of [[Lance Corporal]] while on training and after the British troops suffered heavy casualties,<ref name="FATFWW" /> Speirs was posted overseas on 29 May 1916. The following month, he was promoted to the position of [[Corporal]].<ref name="highlanders"/> Later the same year, he wounded his elbow, from either a gunshot or shrapnel injury.<ref name="highlanders"/><ref name="leader">{{cite news|url=http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/search/display.var.1612976.0.leader_on_the_pitch_and_the_battlefield.php|title=Leader on the pitch and the battlefield|publisher=Telegraph & Argus|accessdate=3 October 2016|first=Mark|last=Neale}}</ref>
In April 1917, Speirs took part in the [[Battle of Arras (1917)|Second Battle of Arras]],<ref name="highlanders"/> for which he was awarded the [[Military Medal]] for bravery in May 1917, before he was promoted to [[Sergeant]] in June.<ref name="leader"/> The following month, he returned home to Scotland on leave, but he soon returned to France and was killed during the [[Battle of Passchendaele]] on or about 20 August 1917, aged 31. He was shot in the thigh during an advance and crawled into a shellhole. He was attended to, but was abandoned by his regiment and was not seen again.<ref name="markham"/><ref name="leader"/> He is buried at {{Interlanguage link multi|Dochy Farm New British Cemetery|nl}}, near [[Ypres]] in Belgium.<ref name="CWGC">{{Cite web |url=http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/161211 |title=Casualty details—Speirs, James H. |publisher=[[Commonwealth War Graves Commission]] |accessdate=3 October 2016}}</ref>
==Personal life and legacy==
|