Major Norman Chalmers Sparling IA att'd 6th KOSB

[Old Owl]

Remembering today Major Norman Chalmers Sparling , 54th Sikhs IA attached 6th Bn King's Own Scottish Borderers, and all the other officers and men of the 9th(Scottish)Division who fell that day.

Norman Sparling was the younger son of Lt.Col.J.P.Sparling, IA (retired) and of Mrs L.M.Sparling of Westward Ho!, North Devon. He was educated at 'The Junior', Westward Ho! and Fettes College. He passed out of Sandhurst into the Indian Army and joined the 54th Sikhs with whom he fought in the Zakka Khel Expedition, 1908.

He commanded 'A' Company of the 6th KOSB from August,1914, with the exception of 3 weeks following the Battle of Neuve Chapelle.

In the attack by the 9th (Scottish) Division on the first day of the Battle of Loos, 25th September,1915, the 6th KOSB were one of the two leading battalions alongside the 11th HLI. From Conan Doyle:

"Nineteen officers led the Borderers over the parapet. Within a few minutes the whole nineteen, including Colonel Maclean and Major Hosley, lay dead or wounded upon the ground. Valour could go no further. Of the rank and file of the Borderers some 500 out of 1000 were lying in the long grass which faced the German trenches.---------Every accumulation of evil which can appal the stoutest heart was heaped upon this brigade--not only the two leading battalions, but also their comrades of the 9th Seaforths and the 10th HLI who supported them. The gas hung thickly about the trenches, and all the troops, but especially the 10th HLI, suffered from it.------The chief cause of the slaughter, however, was the uncut wire, which held up the brigade while the German rifle and machine-gun fire shot them down in heaps.-------An additional horror was found in the shape of a covered trench, invisible until one fell into it, the bottom of which was studded with stakes and laced with wire. Many of the Scottish Borderers lost their lives in this murderous ditch.------In spite of every impediment, some of the soldiers fought their way onwards and sprang down into the German trenches; notably Major Sparling of the Borderers and Lieutenant Sebold of the HLI with a handful of men broke through all opposition. There was no support behind them, however, and after a time the few survivors were compelled to fall back to the trenches from which they had started, both the officers named having been killed."

Norman Sparling was Mentioned in Despatches. He is commemorated by name on the Neuve Chapelle Indian Memorial. He was aged 31.

His elder brother Major Sydney James Belton Sparling was killed whilst leading 'Howe' Bn., R.N.D. at Gallipoli on 4th June,1915. Age 33.

God Rest their Gallant Souls :poppy: