Ross & Cromarty Mountain Battery

Before World War I

The Ross and Cromarty Mountain Battery (usually referred to as the Ross Mountain Battery) was a ‘territorial’ unit – a part-time home defence force consisting of volunteer soldiers.

It was an artillery battery armed with small, mobile, dismountable guns. The guns could be dismantled and carried on the backs of mountain ponies, or even by the men themselves when the territory was really rugged. They served right beside the infantry rather than well behind the lines, like the ‘big guns’.

Many Applecross men served in the Ross Mountain Battery before the war, including John MacDonald of Camusteel, who has left us a written account of “A day in camp with the Territorials” – reveille at 6am, parade, several hours of gun firing practice, and feeding and grooming horses (for the drivers) or cleaning and preparing guns and harnesses (for the gunners). It wasn’t all hard work though, as he tells us the camp was almost deserted in the evenings when “crowds of men can be seen on their way to town to enjoy themselves after their day’s work”.

MacDonald also describes the attendance of the Applecross section of the Battery at a school concert in Applecross to raise money to provide the local pupils with cocoa during the winter months. Everyone congratulated the men on their smart appearance in their blue uniforms but regretted that they could not give a performance of their gun drill as all guns were “at present at headquarters (Lochcarron)”.

Mobilisation

When war was declared and call-up papers were issued in August – just two weeks after they had returned from annual camp at Blair Atholl – around 20 young men left Applecross to go to war with the Battery.

First they travelled by train to Bedford for final training. At Bedford, the Applecross section suffered its first casualty of the war. A measles epidemic broke out, leading to 65 deaths among the 22,000 men of the Highland Division quartered there, including 22 year-old Donald ‘Brodie’ MacKenzie of Camusteel.

While at Bedford, a photograph of the Applecross men of the Ross Mountain Battery was taken when they visited Lord Middleton (owner of Applecross) at his home at Wollaton Hall. The visit to Wollaton was described in the Nottingham Evening Post of 4th September 1914. “Eighteen of the employees or crofters upon Lord Middleton’s Applecross estate, Ross-shire, who form a section of the District Territorial Mountain Force, will, through the kindness of his Lordship, be entertained at Wollaton Hall to-morrow.”

As a mountain force, there was not much need for the Battery’s skills on the farmland of the western front. However, they were ideal for the rugged hillsides of Gallipoli.

Gallipoli

The invasion of Gallipoli began on 25 April 1915 (‘Anzac Day’ – the national day of remembrance in Australia and New Zealand), and the right section of the Ross Mountain Battery was the first artillery ashore.

From the very start of the Gallipoli campaign the resistance from the defending Turkish soldiers was much fiercer and more successful than expected. The Ross Mountain Battery’s landing was delayed because the infantry who were the first ashore was so badly mauled.

Things got worse when they got ashore as they had to pass over the bodies of those who had been killed in the initial landing, while there were bullets “still pinging viciously all around the barge and across the beach”. With what has been described as “extraordinarily, indeed fantastically, good luck” not a single person from the Battery was hit. Shortly after landing, the guns were assembled and the gunners went into action in support of the infantry, apparently for a whole 48 hours without a break, while the ‘drivers’ (i.e. those in charge of the horses) acted as runners, keeping the infantry supplied with ammunition and other essentials.

Estimates of casualties for the Gallipoli campaign vary, but according to some accounts, the British alone suffered 213,000 casualties (dead and wounded), of which 145,000 were from illness. One of these was Finlay MacDonald of Ardheslaig, on the north coast of Applecross, who contracted pulmonary tuberculosis, was invalided back to the UK and died on Monday 22 November 1915 at the 3rd London General Hospital, less than a month after his 21st birthday.

Salonika

After the evacuation of Gallipoli in January 1916, the Battery was sent first to Egypt and then in early August to Salonika in Greece. This was another mountainous area, well suited to their skills, and another disease-ridden front where malaria and dysentery were almost as much of a threat as the enemy.

Barely a month after arriving in Salonika, William MacKinnon of Camusterrach died of dysentery, aged 24 on 3rd October 1916.

A description of life in Salonika for the Ross Mountain Battery, was given by Alex MacLeod (nicknamed ‘Zadock’), who was originally from Lewis but became a GP in Applecross after the war.

“Generally it was either lying in forward positions under the enemy’s guns, where one had to lie close all day with nothing to look forward to but the next attack of fever … or climbing interminable mountains by the most execrable paths, to raids on enemy posts… Often many miles from supplies, exposed to all extremes of temperature and climatic conditions, prevented by a vagabond existence from preparing adequate shelter (for invariably it was another move as soon as the dug-out was finished”.
“Loyal Lewis.” Roll of honour, 1914 and after. Published Stornoway, 1920. Page 53

The men of the Applecross section

Back row left to right:

1. Murdo MacDonald, Camusteel and Milton. Known as “Murdo Never”, after the war he worked as a fisherman and ran a shop in Milton with his wife Mary Ann. Later he was the Applecross postman. He was also well known locally as a bee keeper. He died in Applecross in 1950 and is buried in Clachan.
2. Jimmy Anderson, an estate worker. Left Applecross after the war around 1920 to work in Inverness in the Rose Street foundry.
3. Finlay Macleod. On being demobbed, worked in Applecross gardens until he took ill and died at the age of 73.
4. Willie MacKinnon, Camusterrach. Died on active service in Salonika.
5. Thomas MacKenzie (Tommy Keppoch). He had the reputation of never taking shelter from shelling or writing home during his service. His father was cattleman at Keppoch to three lairds – Thomas MacKenzie, the Duke of Leeds and Lord Middleton.
6. Duncan MacRae, Toscaig. His brother Kenneth composed “The Gallant Lads of Ross-shire”.
7. Alick MacKenzie (the “Sausage”). After the war he emigrated to America, but returned to Scotland in 1930 and for years was a butcher in Applecross and then became a Church of Scotland Missionary in the Small lsles, Skye, Harris and Loch Broom. He retired to Toscaig. His brother composed “Gog Gog” amongst many other songs and poems.
8. George MacDonald (nickname, Graham), Milton. Uncle of Donnie “Russel” MacKenzie, stalker at Russel and grand uncle of Christopher “Russel” stalker at Russel and Achnashellach. He was discharged owing to bad eyesight and spent the remainder of his life crofting and fishing in Applecross as well as being postman for the south end of Applecross for many years, travelling on a tricycle.
9. Allan MacLennan, Home Farm, where he was grieve (farm manager) until his death in 1940.

Front row left to right:

1. George MacDonald, Ardubh. Died in 1919.
2. John MacKenzie, Toscaig, Sgt. Late husband of Jessie MacKenzie. He worked as the estate joiner at Applecross until he retired. Lived in Cruary when he was working, his children being known as the “Cruaries”. Retired to family home in Toscaig.
3. Kenneth Murchison, Toscaig. Brother of Captain William Murchison. Moruisk, Lochcarron. By the start of the war he was the chief electrical engineer at Abadan Oil Refinery in lran with the lranian Oil Company. His wife, lsabel Ross (of Shore Street, Applecross) travelled across Europe with a very young baby (Deirdre) to Join him in lran shortly after the start of the war.
4. Roderick Kennedy, Toscaig, emigrated to South Africa on being demobbed.
5. William MacKenzie, (Willie Rufus) Camusteel. Uncle of Captain Allan Maclnnes who retired to Camusterrach. He emigrated to America in the early 1920s. He did not write home and was feared killed in an accident. In WWII, he joined the American Merchant Navy and came to Applecross on leave. He met his mother (by chance) on the “Loch Ness” during the journey. He returned to Applecross after the war, where he was a farrier. He married a local district nurse. It is thought he had a daughter in America.
6. Kenneth MacRae, Toscaig. After his service in Gallipoli, he emigrated to Australia where he finished as Superintendent of Police. While in Gallipoli he composed the poem “Gallant Lads of Ross shire”. Wounded.
7. Donald MacKenzie, Camusteel. Died in Bedford on 13th December, 1914 after succumbing to measles..
8. Murdo MacKenzie, Keppoch. Brother of Thomas number 5 in back row. He was wounded at Gallipoli. After the war was estate shepherd. He used to travel through the highlands performing a “double act” with Duncan MacKenzie (Gog Gog); Murdo told stories and Duncan sang).
9. John Murchison, Camusterrach. Worked in Glasgow and died at an early age through wounds received at Gallipoli.

(Information gathered by Applecross Historical Society, based on community memory and anecdote)