Remembering this day 13th June 1941; Lance-Corporal Bob (Ty) Smith, 8th Royal Scots

Bob was killed during an enemy bombing raid whilst serving with the 8th Battalion The Royal Scots at Lowestoft. He was in charge of a Signals Detachment with one of the Rifle Companies located on the foreshore. He is buried in Innerleithen Cemetery in the Scottish Borders.

A close friend, greatly missed and mourned these past 71 years.

Joe Brown

 

A Rifle Company based in a school on the foreshore received a direct hit during a bombing raid and 4 lads in the Company and two signallers attached were killed. It was our first casualties attributed to enemy action. I was only 20 years old and a close friend of Bob's and sat beside his coffin covered by the Union Flag carried by 15-cwt truck on to a Battalion Parade and although I have heard the Pipes and Drums play the lament, Flowers of the Forest, many times before it was the first time it had real meaning for me. Whilst sitting beside Bob I saw in the distant corner of the parade ground his grieving Father standing alone beside a hearse ready to take him home. It was a most sorrowful moment and one that has remained steadfastly with me ever since.

Bob a great lad and a good friend and was in the year before the War a Powderhall sprinter.

Joe Brown

 

RIP L/Cpl Smith

(Headstone photo of R.T Smith from the Scottish War Graves Project.)