8th Battalion, The Black Watch
James Rutherford was born in 1891 and was an offce worker in Edinburgh when the war broke out.
He was one of the first 100,000 to volunteer, an honoured status within Kitchener’s Army, when he joined the 8th Battalion The Black Watch in September 1914. The battalion crossed to France in early May 1915, one of the earliest of the New Army to do so.
He saw action in September 1915 in the assault on Hohenzollern Redoubt and the fight to retain it
thereafter at the Battle of Loos. And again in the dawn attack on Longueval in July 1916.
He rose to be a sergeant, this may be a measure of his ability as a soldier but was also a testament to his ability to survive as only 25% of the battalion emerged unscathed from Longueval/Delville Wood.
The battalion was next in the firing line at Butte de Warlencourt in October. Here his luck ran out.
After repelling a German flame thrower attack he was killed in action according to the battalion war diary, by our own artillery.
His death is recorded as 20 October 1916 although it was more likely the previous day as he would have been noted as killed in action at the morning roll call.
Sergeant James Rutherford lay with six other men undiscovered until 1932 near the Abbey d’Escault on the ridge east of the Butte and is now buried at Serre 2 Cemetery on the Somme.