Private Andrew M McCreath (34878) served with the 6th’7th Battalion Royal Scots Fusiliers in World War 1.Son of John T. and Maggie McCreath, of 154, High St., Ayr, he was killed on 31 July 1917.
He is remembered at the Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial. Panel 19 and 33.
Ypres is a town in the Province of West Flanders, Belgium. The Memorial is situated at the eastern side of the town on the road to Menin and Courtrai .
Each night at 8 pm the traffic is stopped at the Menin Gate while members of the local Fire Brigade sound the Last Post in the roadway under the Memorial’s arches.
The Menin Gate is one of four memorials to the missing in Belgian Flanders which cover the area known as the Ypres Salient. Broadly speaking, the Salient stretched from Langemarck in the north to the northern edge in Ploegsteert Wood in the south, but it varied in area and shape throughout the war.
In 1917, the Third Battle of Ypres took place – an offensive mounted by Commonwealth forces to divert German attention from a weakened French front further south. The initial attempt in June to dislodge the Germans from the Messines Ridge was a complete success, but the main assault north-eastward, which began at the end of July, quickly became a dogged struggle against determined opposition and the rapidly deteriorating weather. The campaign finally came to a close in November with the capture of Passchendaele.