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2Lt. William Robert Kennedy
British Army 2nd Battalion Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders
from:Dunbeath, Caithness
(d.25th Sept 1915)
My Uncle Bill Kennedy, an older brother of my yet-to-be-born mother, was a promising medical student at the University of Aberdeen, where he gained 1st class certificates of merit in his first year.
Initially, her served in the Gordon Highlanders, going into the trenches on his 19th birthday on 8th March 1915, he displayed such conspicuous bravery in carrying urgent despatches across a shell-swept zone, by motorcycle, from his Battalion to Divisional HQ, that he was complimented by the Major-General commanding the Third Division, was recommended for the DCM, and singled out for promotion.
After a six-week course at the French Military College at St Omer, he was instead awarded a commission on the field, 2nd Lieut. in 2nd Battalion, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. After two days leave in August to get his uniform, during which he managed to get home and see his parents for one night, he was killed at Loos, at the head of his platoon, leading them against the enemy, shot through the heart on a day when the battalion lost 10 officers and 112 men. The chaplain Rev Fred Langlands buried him in Cambrin Churchyard on the 28th and wrote to his parents, Dr John Robert Kennedy and Mrs Cecilia Kennedy. My mother, born in 1916, was given the middle name Cambrin, in his memory.
