MID-April, 1939, and preparations for war were gathering momentum. In Glasgow, dignitaries made direct National Service appeals to nearly 30,000 people in 15 cinemas across the city on the evening of Sunday, April 23. Two hundred air-raid wardens, however, lodged a complaint about the state of the organisation in Glasgow, arguing that, contrary to what the public had been led to believe, the city's air-raid precautions were not well advanced. Amid other reports of the mass preparations, the Glasgow Herald ran a photograph of 'Herr Hitler' taking the salute at a military parade in Berlin as goose-stepping 'Black Guards' marched past in formation.
Up in Fort George, Inverness-shire, at an educational class, the attention of recruits of the 1st Battalion the Highland Light Infantry (HLI) was turned, even briefly, to a war that had ended just 21 years earlier, as Corporal McDermid and Corporal Allan instructed them in the proud story of the regimental badge with reference to its engagements in the First World War.
Today the HLI (City of Glasgow) Association lists that indomitable record. The 1st Battalion of regulars fought in, amongst other places, the battle of Neuve Chapelle and the Second Battle of Ypres, before its soldiers and officers were moved to Mesopotamia in December 1915. The 2nd Battalion was involved in the battles at Aisne, Ypres, Loos, the Somme, Arras and Cambrai and in the advance to the Hindenburg Line in September 1918. HLI Territorial, and Reserve and Service, and Territorial, battalions also saw action.
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