Donald Campbell, 8A Upper Garrabost

Private DONALD CAMPBELL
Last address in Lewis: 8A Upper Garrabost,
Only son of Christina Campbell, of Garrabost, Lewis, and the late Murdo Campbell.
Service unit: 1st Gordon Highlanders
Service number: 3/5798
Date of death: 21 April 1916 at the age of 23
Died of pneumonia
Interred: Etaples Military Cemetery, grave VI. E. 8A
Mentioned on family gravestone in Eye Cemetery, Lewis
Local memorial: Point (Garrabost)

Highland News, 27th May 1916

Garrabost Soldier's Death
Of all those from this township who took partin the early stages of the cruel struggle in France, there is now none left without being either wounded, killed or prisoners. Of the many sore bereavements arising in connection with the war, perhaps the hardest are the cases of those widows left to mourn the loss of an only son. Sad to say, we have many such cases to-day in Lewis. One of these is Widow Christina Campbell, daughter of Mr Torquil Macleod, No 8 Garrabost. At the beginning of the war her only son, Donald, joined hte regiment, the 1st Gordon Highlanders. He continued to take part in the many feats of that gallant regiment until he was wounded on the 25th November, 1914. Recovering from his wound, he soon rejoined. Though he spent two winters in the trenches, it was in the latter end of March he contracted a severe cold, which developed into pheumonia. He died in the first week of April, int eh 20th General Hospital, in his 24th year. Dr Clayton, in writing to his mother, says: -"As the doctor who looked after your boy before he died, I feel I should like to tell you what a splendid fellow I thought him. He had rather a distressing illness, which made him very breathless, but his cheerful patience was wonderful. I shall never forget his smile, and his courage during those last edays. You have lost a real good boy, and I am very sorry indeed for you, and I hope this small testimony of mine may comfort you a little." His nurse, Miss Annabel Macleod, a nitve of Kershader, Lochs, speaks in high terms of the Christian patience and resignation with which Donald Campbell bore his distressing illenss. He was very much respected in his native township as a kind and warm-hearted young man, and as the weeks pass by, he will be sorely missed, not only by his own relatives, but by his acquaintances in his native village.