Surname:

Ross

Forename(s):

Douglas Stuart

Rank:

Lieutenant

Service number:

 

Regiment:

2nd Lincolnshire Regiment

Date of death:

1 July 1916 Aged 20

Place of death:

Somme (First day)

Buried

Commemorated

Ovillers Military Cemetery – VIII.O.2

Kingussie War Memorial

Background

Douglas’s father was born at Gaskbeg, Laggan, Inverness-shire. Douglas was born Prestwich, Lancashire in 1895.

Douglas parents Alexander Ross, 32, and Annie, 21, (m.s. Stephens) married on 1 August 1877 at St Michaels, Toxteth, Lancashire. Both were of Upper Parliament Street, Toxteth Park, West Derby.

In 1911 Douglas attended the Rossall School, Fleetwood. The boarding school lost more than 280 former pupils during World War One. It ran an Officer Training Corps, preparing its pupils for war with rifle practice, trench-digging on school grounds and regular marches through Fleetwood. Douglas is named on the school war memorial along side six other former pupils “Rossallians” who died on 1 July 1916.

At the time of his death Douglas’s parents were living at 36 Fellows Rd, Hampstead, London

War Record

Douglas was confirmed in the rank of Second Lieutenant in the 3rd Bat The Lincolnshire Regiment – supplement to the London Gazette of 22 July 1915. He was promoted to Lieutenant in the Lincolnshire Regiment on 16 March 1916.

On 1st July 1916 the 2nd Lincolnshires were in position at 3.30 am and, some three hours later, the British started an intense bombardment. The trenches where they had assembled were crowded with soldiers and the Germans started a high explosive intense bombardment. The main attack started around 7.25 am and the 2nd Lincolnshires came up against rifle and machine gun fire. They were faced with a strongly held German frontline and those that made it through were attacked by a shower of bombs. Attempts to attack the German line proved to be fruitless and after three hours they had run out of grenades and the Germans were making counter attacks. The 2nd Lincolnshires fell back to no-mans land and took cover in shell holes and then moved back to their trenches. The 2nd Lincolnshires had sustained five hundred casualities in just a few hours. One of the casualities was Douglas who died on 1 July 1916 Killed in Action on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. He was aged 20. His remains were exhumed and reburied at Ovillers Military Cemetery.

Douglas brother, John Alexander Ross, also died in World War One aged 33 on 26 October 1915. He is buried at Dud Corner Cemetery, Loos.

Also remembered on the Kingussie and Insh Memorial in Kingussie Parish Church and Rossall School Memorial, Fleetwood.

Old Rossall school memorial St George’s Memorial Church, Ypres
Old Rossall School Memorial St George’s Memorial Church, Ypres
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