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Pte. Alexander Palmer
British Army 12th Btn. Highlight Light Infantry
from:Glasgow
(d.26th Sep 1915)
More than fifty years ago, my grandfather gave me Private Alexander Palmer's 1914-15 Star. Ashamedly, I lost the young soldier's service medal some years back, but the mystery of how my grandfather came to have it haunts me to this day. My Grandfather was William Cassidy and he served between 1919 and 1921 as a Rifleman with the Royal Irish Rifles in postwar Mesopotamia. (He received his General Service Medal for this service, in Hamilton, Scotland in 1924.) By then, however, Alexander Palmer had been dead for almost a decade, killed on the first day of the Battle of Loos, 26th September 1915. On that day, my grandfather would have been fifteen and a half, far short of the official age for joining the Army. But family legend has it that William, eldest of thirteen children, lied about his age, enlisted with the 2nd Battalion, Royal Irish Rifles, and had a glorious reputation as a runner in the trenches until a massive explosion left him deaf in one ear. None of which is likely to have happened during his three years service in Mesopotamia, where there was little trench warfare and limited artillery barrage. Grandpa did have two Army numbers, however: his regimental number and his post-1920 seven-digit new number. His earlier service records appear to have been destroyed in the 1940 London blitz. Did he and Alexander meet in France? A question I would love to be able to answer.
