Testaments of the fallen
But Private James Tracey’s luck didn’t hold and, on 12 July 1915, two months after he wrote those lines, he was killed in action at Noyelles-lesVermelles in France. Tracey, a private in the 13th Hussars, was writing to his mother in Leith in a letter which also expressed his concern at the hundreds of men of the 7th (Leith) Battalion Royal Scots killed in the Gretna rail disaster of May 1915 – “Dear mother, you have no idea how sorry I feel for those poor helpless young fellows who died, pinned beneath the wreckage.” for more click here
