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In the fighting that took place in the retreat from Mons, a West Calder soldier, Private Charles Gillespie, of the 2nd Royal Scots, whose home was at 19 Annan Street, West Calder, was injured and sent back to a hospital in London. His 'adventures' were recounted in a letter home to his wife and retold in the local newspaper.
"Gillespie, writing home to his wife, tells of the terrible engagement he was in at the battle of Mons, and says it resembled hell. The guns got so hot, men could not hold them. One of his chums was killed, but although the British losses were heavy, he was certain the losses of the Germans must have been six times heavier from the way they were mowed down."
The Times newspaper had published a headline on August 30th "Broken British Regiments Battling Against The Odds." The article told of the huge losses sustained by the BEF on its retreat from Mons. It was a report that was totally at odds with the official one put out by the government Press Bureau. Kitchener at once published a rebuttal through the Press Bureau and questions were asked in the House of Commons about the right of the press to endanger the war effort in their reports..
Describing a fight between French and German aeroplanes, Gillespie says "The two machines were right over our heads. We could almost have brought the German down by rifle fire, but waited first to see whether the French aeroplane was able to manage by itself ... when it was almost level the French pilot started to fire at the German with a revolver and the German replied. For nearly a minute was heard the faint crack, crack, crack of the revolvers away up in the blue.... the German plane began to drift away downwards. A minute or two afterwards one of our chaps came running up to say the German aeroplane had fallen and its pilot was dead."
Gillespie comments that he and his friends were ready for the fight but 'were tricked away from the front line', being ordered to march for 7 days and nights with never more than two hour sleep at a time, covering over 200 miles in the retreat.
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