SECOND LIEUTENANT JOHN JAMES ANDREW
NORTHUMBERLAND FUSILIERS
29TH APRIL 1917 AGE 22
BURIED: ETAPLES MILITARY CEMETERY, FRANCE
Second Lieutenant John James Andrew died on 29 April 1917 of wounds received twenty days earlier on the opening day of the battle of Arras. Andrew initially served as a private with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders before being commissioned into the 20th Northumberland Fusiliers. His medal index card records that he was entitled to the 1914-1915 Star having first entered a theatre of war in late May 1915. It was year later that he told his family, 'If I die for my country I am happy' - and a year after this that he did.
Born in Carluke, Lanarkshire, Andrew was the son of John Andrew an elementary school teacher who served in the First Garrison Battalion Cameron Highlanders. This was a short-lived battalion soon absorbed into the Royal Defence Corps. This was involved in either home protection or observation duties. It was John Andrew senior who signed for his son's inscription. A patriotic and affirmative choice that says as much about the father as it does about the son.