Pte 57575 Harry Suttie

Harry left Cupar for a job in Armadale.

Fife News - Saturday 21 February 1914

PRESENTATION. - On Friday evening Mr Harry Suttie, baker, was met by a few friends and presented with a handsome silver cigarette-case, on his leaving Cupar to fulfil an appointment with the Armadale Co-operative Society. Mr James Braid, who made the presentation, referred to the esteem in which Mr Suttie was held. A pleasant evening was spent with songs, violin selections, etc.

Harry enlisted in Dundee and served originally as Private 738, of the Army Cyclist Corps. Based on the amount of the War Gratuity, Harry served for two years, enlisting in about December 1915. Following a transfer he was serving in the 20th Battalion, of The King’s Liverpool Regiment as Private No 57575 when he was killed in action on the 03rd January 1918.

Harry now rests at Railway Dugout Burial Ground, Zillebeke in Belgium.

Railway Dugouts Burial Ground is 2 Km west of Zillebeke village, where the railway runs on an embankment overlooking a small farmstead, which was known to the troops as Transport Farm.  Burials began there in April 1915 and continued until the Armistice, especially in 1916 and 1917, when Advanced Dressing Stations were located in the dugouts and the farm.  The names "Railway Dugouts" and "Transport Farm" were both used for the cemetery.  In the summer of 1917 a considerable number were obliterated by shell fire before they could be marked. The names "Railway Dugouts" and "Transport Farm" were both used for the cemetery.

At the time of the Armistice, more than 1,700 graves in the cemetery were known and marked. Other graves were then brought in from the battlefields and small cemeteries in the vicinity, and a number of the known graves destroyed by artillery fire were specially commemorated. The latter were mainly in the present Plots IV and VII.

The cemetery now contains 2,459 Commonwealth burials and commemorations of the First World War. 430 of the burials are unidentified and 261 casualties are represented by special memorials. Other special memorials record the names of 72 casualties buried in Valley Cottages and Transport Farm Annexe Cemeteries whose graves were destroyed in later fighting.

The cemetery was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens. 

The newspapers seem to contradict each other:- 

Firstly, he joined the Black Watch - which is highly unlikely, as on his Medal Roll you will find what appears to be a large group of men with numbers either side of his who look to have been transferred to the K.L.R. at the same time as many are in numerical/alphabetical sequence. SDGW reveals they were all formerly Army Cyclist Corp men - predominantly the Highland Divisional Cyclist Company. There are some service records which indicate they were transferred to the K.L.R. at 24/I.B.D. on 16/12/1916 (24/I.B.D. at Etaples was the I.B.D. dedicated to finding drafts for Battalions of the K.L.R.) SDGW records a former Regiment/Corps and it is invariably the unit the man first joined when he enlisted into the army, not some intermediate unit. On that basis I would conclude he was more likely to have been originally a Cyclist man rather than Black Watch. [Russ GWF]

Secondly, his mother was under the impression he died accidently, whilst his Company Sergeant, in a letter, said it was fever.

His death was first reported in the Linlithgowshire Gazette on Friday 01st February 1918;

ARMADALE

ARMADALE BAKER DIES IN FRANCE.

Word reached Armadale on Tuesday, through a sergeant of the Black Watch in France, that Pte. Harry Suttie had died there of fever. Pte. Suttie, who before enlisting over two years ago was employed as a baker with Armadale Co-operative Socy., was a native of Fife, and joined the Black Watch. He had been in France for the greater part of his soldiering, and had expected to spend the New Year holidays at Armadale, but had been taken ill with fever. No further word had been heard from him, but a sergeant friend of his, who resides at Harthill, and who has just come home on leave, has given the information that Pte. Suttie has died. He is the third baker out of the Co-operative bake-shop to have sacrificed his life in the conflict. He was a single man, whose home was at Cupar, where his mother resides.