Private George MCLEOD (18600)
1/5th Battalion Gordon Highlanders (Buchan and Formartin)

Date of birth: 7th December 1893
Date of death: 16th April 1918

Died of wounds aged 24
Buried at St Sever Cemetery Extension, Rouen Plot IX Row P Grave 11
He was born on the 7th of December 1893 at Little Delrachie, Drumin, Glenlivet the second son of Murdoch (a shepherd) and Jane (nee Shaw) McLeod of Strondow, Knockando. He lived in Morayshire for ten years where he worked as a ploughman.

He enlisted in the army on the 30th of June 1917 at Aberdeen.

On the 21st of March 1918 the Germans launched a massive offensive against the British lines on a wide front. The 1/5th Gordons were in position to the north of St Quentin. Advancing under the cover of thick fog the Germans surrounded and virtually annihilated the battalion with only around thirty men able to report at Brigade Headquarters that night. By the 28th of March they were part of an amalgamated battalion made up of the survivors of other battalion in their Brigade and, with the addition of a number of men from their headquarters such as cooks and the like; they made up a company in the composite battalion.

That day they were ordered to counterattack at the village of Lamotte, thirteen miles east of Amiens on the Roman Road running through Villiers-Bretonneux. The Gordons were in the first wave of the attack and they managed to advance over a mile and a half, getting within 200 yards of their objective before the attack broke down following which they were withdrawn to the village of Marcelcave.

George McLeod was wounded in both legs by gunshots during the attack and was evacuated to No 5 General Hospital at Rouen where he succumbed to his wounds two weeks later.

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