More about Alexander Wood Doig

Alexander Wood Doig   R/2104   Royal Naval Division

DUNDEE R.N.D. MAN KILLED IN ACTION.

Intimation has been received by Mr W. S. Doig, baker, Perth Road, Dundee, that his son, A.B. Alexander W. Doig, Royal Naval Division, was killed in action on 23d December.  Deceased joined the naval forces about eighteen months ago, and had been at the front for five months.  He was 20 years of age.  Four elder brothers are serving, three in the army and one in the navy.

Dundee Courier 31st December 1917

Alexander W Doig was the son of Mr W S and Mrs Jean A Doig, 197 Perth Road, Dundee. He was conscripted into the British Army in August 1916 at Kirkcaldy and served for 10 months in Highland Cyclists Corps Territorial Force before being transferred to the Royal Naval Division in June 1917. After training at Blandford he was drafted to the Drake Battalion arriving in France in late July 1917. After further training at XIII Corps Draft Training Centre he joined the Battalion in late August 1917. He would have served with the Drake at Passchendaele in October 1917 before the RND moved to Welsh Ridge in the Cambrai sector. Welsh Ridge was the site of heavy fighting in late December 1917 with the Germans attempting to retake ground lost in the first large scale assault by British tanks in November. Alexander Doig died from wounds on Christmas Eve 1917 and was first buried by the Chaplain of the Drake Battalion but reburied after the war in the Villers Plouich Cemetery, Northern France.

Iain Stewart and Iain Birnie