Sgt 57377 David Ross Hodge

He enlisted in Glasgow and served originally with the Army Cyclist Corps as No: 15211 but was transferred and was serving in the 19^th Battalion, The King’s Liverpool Regiment as Sergeant 57377 when he was killed in action on the 20^th September, 1917 during the Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele).

Details of the attack in which David was killed were recorded in the Battalion diary as follows:

19^th September 1917 – In support in Denys Wood.  Battalion relieved 17^th KLR in front line. Relief complete about 11 p.m.   

20^th September 1917 – A raid was carried out by a party of the battalion of 25 OR under Capt. C. Laird, just before 6 a.m. on The Twins. Enemy machine gun fire, however, proved too much for them, although several attempts were made to reach the objective.  Capt. C. Laird was killed in the operation, also 6 OR, and 14 OR were wounded.

Graham Maddocks in “Liverpool Pals”, p.178, explains: 

“The remainder of September was fairly uneventful for the rest of the Pals Battalions, except for two trench raids made by the 19^th Battalion on 20 September 1917, which, elsewhere on the Salient, was the opening day of the phase of the offensive later referred to as the Battle of the Menin Road. These raids were made for two purposes. The first was an attempt to confuse the enemy as to the intensity and direction of the main attack, and the second was to try to capture two blockhouses known as ‘The Twins’, which commanded the 19^th Battalion’s trench front, and thus was able to dominate all its movement. The raiding party, consisting of Captain C. Laird, and twenty-five other ranks left the British front line at 6.00 a.m. and moved into No Man’s Land. However, it was soon spotted, and machine guns opened fire from the blockhouses. Despite a most determined effort to carry the objectives, the situation was hopeless from the start, and Laird and six other ranks were killed and fourteen more soldiers were wounded.”

David's body was not recovered from the battlefieldor was subsequently ost as he has no known grave. He is commemorated on the Tyne Cot Memorial.

Those United Kingdom and New Zealand servicemen who died after August 16th 1917 are named on the Tyne Cot Memorial, a site which marks the furthest point reached by Commonwealth forces in Belgium until nearly the end of the war.

The Tyne Cot Memorial now bears the names of almost 35,000 officers and men whose graves are not known. The memorial, designed by Sir Herbert Baker with sculpture by Joseph Armitage and F.V. Blundstone, was unveiled by Sir Gilbert Dyett on 20 June 1927.

The memorial forms the north-eastern boundary of Tyne Cot Cemetery, which was established around a captured German blockhouse or pill-box used as an advanced dressing station.

David was reported as killed in the Weekly Casualty List on the 23rd October 1917.

His father received David’s Army effects, including a War Gratuity of £11-10s.  His mother, Mrs. Janet Ross Hodge, of Furnace Road, Craigvill, Muirkirk, was awarded a pension of 11/- a week from April 1918.

His father died in 1923 and his mother in 1931.

David is commemorated on the family gravestone in Muirkirk Cemetery.

He is also commemorated on the following Memorials:

Muirkirk (Gateway) Memorial

Scotland’s Roll of Honour.

CWGC has his first name as Davis.