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Johnny Poe, Black Watch

 
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Adam Brown
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Joined: 14 Dec 2006
Posts: 7312
Location: Edinburgh (From Sutherland)

PostPosted: Mon Apr 11, 2011 9:31 am    Post subject: Johnny Poe, Black Watch Reply with quote

Is this man killed at Loos commemorated anywhere in Scotland? He will be in the Black Watch Roll in the SNWM but were Black Watch officers commemorated anywhere else?

POE, JOHN PRENTISS
Initials: J P
Nationality: United Kingdom
Rank: Private
Regiment/Service: Black Watch (Royal Highlanders)
Unit Text: 1st Bn.
Age: 41
Date of Death: 25/09/1915
Service No: S/11634
Additional information: Son of the late John Prentiss Poe and Anne Johnson Poe. Casualty Type: Commonwealth War Dead
Grave/Memorial Reference: Panel 78 to 83.
Memorial: LOOS MEMORIAL

He had quite a life as an adventurer before he died.

Adam
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Keptie



Joined: 24 Feb 2009
Posts: 937
Location: near Arbroath Angus

PostPosted: Mon Apr 11, 2011 10:19 am    Post subject: poe Reply with quote

Adam

The SNWM Roll of Honour / file that Ive got of the BW for the Great war lists POE, John Prentiss. born BALTIMORE USA , S/ 11634 , pte , kia F & F 25/9/1915 , 1st Bn BW


You will have seen that on the computer index for the SNWM of course
No info as you say in the CWGC index as to where the parents were from in Scotland ........

pat w anderson
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Adam Brown
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Location: Edinburgh (From Sutherland)

PostPosted: Mon Apr 11, 2011 11:55 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Pat

He was some sort of American adventurer and as far as I know he had no Scottish connections. I was just wondering if Black Watch officers were commemorated elsewhere?

He was a third cousin (or something like that) of Edgar Allan Poe.

Kind regards

Adam
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DelBoy



Joined: 12 Jul 2007
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Location: The County of Angus

PostPosted: Mon Apr 11, 2011 12:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Adam I take it you've seen the wikipedia page about him?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Poe

Are there any officer only memorials?

Cheers,
Derek.
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Adam Brown
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Location: Edinburgh (From Sutherland)

PostPosted: Mon Apr 11, 2011 1:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Derek

Yes, I've seen that. There is a Cameronians memorial in Dunkeld which only lists officers.

He has no Scottish connections other than the regiment so I was just wondering if he was listed here anywhere.

Thanks

ADam
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john burnett



Joined: 29 Jan 2007
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Location: Fife

PostPosted: Thu Apr 21, 2011 9:06 pm    Post subject: Poe Reply with quote

"PART II: WITH FAMOUS BRITISH REGIMENTS



VIII

JOHN P. POE, OF THE FIRST BLACK WATCH

On the official records of Princeton he was known as John Prentiss Poe, Jr., of Baltimore, of the class of 1895. To his college mates he was known as Johnny Poe. He was eminently a man of deeds, not words. When in his freshman year he was elected president of his class, chiefly for the reason, rival candidates alleged, that he was "the homeliest man in the whole bunch," this was his speech of acceptance:

Fellows, I am proud of the honor you have bestowed upon me. My face can't be ruined much, so I'll go in all the battles with you head first. Nominations are now in order for vice-president.

This was the martial spirit that animated Johnny Poe, not only during his college career, when, like his brothers, he won fame on the football-field, but throughout his whole life. The softness and ease of peace had no attractions for him; his one ambition was to get into the thick of a good fight, "head first."

The army offered the best outlet for his superabundant energies. So in the war with Spain, in 1898, we find him in Cuba with the Fifth Maryland Regiment. But he participated in no fighting. The taste, however, which he had got of army life made him hungry for more, and so, in the hope of seeing some real fighting, he joined the regulars, and in 1899 he was in the Philippines, a private in the 23d United States Infantry. But he was again disappointed; the campaign was tame. He did not give up, however. In 1903 he served with a detachment of Kentucky militia in the suppression of a mountain feud.

Late in the same year, in November, when there was considerable excitement on the isthmus because of the revolt of Panama from Colombia, Poe thought that "the real thing" might be within his grasp, if the United States Government sent troops to the scene. Accordingly he went to Washington and wrote a characteristic letter to the commandant of the Marine Corps, offering to enlist for active service. The letter was as follows:

I understand that the Dixie is to take a battalion of marines to Colon from League Island next week.... I wouldn't mind enlisting except that I might be put to guarding some colony of land crabs 200 or 300 miles from where the fighting was going on, as in the Philippines, where the only thing our company did was to make the Sultan of Sulu sign a receipt for the 125 dollars Uncle Sam gave him. If I were to go there, to Panama, and not see any service, I would feel that if I were to go to Hades for the warmth, the fires would be at least banked, if not altogether extinguished, owing to furnaces being repaired. I was introduced to some cow-punchers in New Mexico by Mike Furness, '91, as "the hero of two wars, whose only wounds are scars from lying on his bunk too much." I must outlive that reputation.

Impressed by the unusual tone of this letter, General George F. Elliott took Poe himself over to John D. Long, then Secretary of the Navy, and laid the case before him. Secretary Long was so amused by the letter and so pleased by the writer's soldierly spirit that he ordered the necessary arrangements to be made for Poe to join the marines. He sailed on the Dixie and was made a sergeant. He refused, however, to accept the position, preferring to remain in the ranks. His reason was that he did not care for authority and disliked responsibility, even the small share that would attach to a non-commissioned office. He wanted to enjoy the pleasure of fighting independently, as an individual, without the care of controlling other men. Again, however, he was thwarted in his desire to get into active service; and Poe regarded active service, according to Captain Frank E. Evans, editor of the Marine Corps Gazette, from which the foregoing facts are taken, as " the acme of adventure, the greatest game in the world." There was no fighting of any consequence on Panama, and he returned to the United States.

Poe had to wait until 1914 for the great opportunity of his life, which the war in Europe presented. At last he saw his chance to get his fill of real fighting in what promised to be the most stupendous war of all time. He went to Canada immediately and volunteered. Reaching England, he was transferred to the heavy artillery. A little experience, however, in this branch of the service was enough for him. Long-range fighting was not to his taste, and he again succeeded in transferring to the First :Black Watch, the Scottish regiment famous in Great Britain's military annals, with a record of more than one hundred and fifty years of service.

Thus in the spring of 1915 Poe was endeavoring to make himself at home among the "Ladies from Hell," as the Germans later dubbed these kilted Scots, whom they found to be fierce fighters---a member of A Company, 3d Platoon, First Black Watch, stationed in the trenches in northern France. Late in the summer of the same year Andrew C. Imbrie, secretary of the Princeton class of '95, received a letter from Poe, dated July 24, in which he acknowledged the receipt of no fewer than one hundred and thirty post-cards, "so far," from his classmates, the suggestion for such a demonstration of the affection and esteem in which Johnny Poe was held by his fellows having been made by Imbrie in the previous spring. Poe wrote: "I am trying to feel more at home in a kilt, and while they are cool, the legs get dirty for quite a way above the knees." He went on as follows:

Of course we are going to win; but the "Limburgers" are putting up a great fight. What business have the "Square Heads" to start on the downward course the Empire which weathered the Spanish Armada, the Dutch under De Ruyter and Von Trump, the "Grand Monarch" and Napoleon?

Aren't you sorry I'm such a shark on history ?

The Black Watch carried a German trench on May 9th after several regiments had tried and failed. It was taken with the piper playing the "Hieland Laddie."

A month after this letter was written Johnny Poe was killed in a charge of the Black Watch before Hullock, in northern France, eight or ten miles east of Bethune, a part of the great drive of the Allies in the last week of September. A letter to Poe's brother, Edgar Allan Poe, from the captain, D. Lumsden, of Poe's company, dated November 25, 1915, and reproduced in the Princeton Alumni Weekly, gave some details as to how Poe met his end:

In reply to your letter of the 11th of November, I have made inquiries ,about your brother's death. He was killed on September 25 in the big engagement, while he was working with brigade bombers. He was advancing with bombs to another regiment when he was hit by a bullet and killed instantly. This happened roughly at 7 a.m., soon after the great advance began, and he is buried with several of his comrades on the left of the place called "Lone Tree," and a mound marks the grave.

I was greatly grieved to hear that he had been killed, as he was all that a good man and soldier could be. He was the most willing worker in my company and was in my platoon before I took command of the company when our captain was killed.

I offer you and all his relatives and friends my deepest sympathies on your great loss. But it is a comfort to think that he had lived a fine life in the finest way a man can.

The evidence of another officer is quoted that Poe "was the most popular fellow in the company, having been offered promotion, but he refused it," preferring as always to fight in the ranks. Poe Field at Princeton, with its memorial flagstaff, from which the national colors always fly, attests Poe's popularity among his college mates. His relation to football was such that there was a peculiar appropriateness in the Memorial Football Cup which in 1916 his mother presented to Princeton, to be given each year to that member of the team who exemplified in the highest degree the traits which were conspicuous in Poe himself---(1) loyalty and devotion to Princeton's football interests; (2) courage, manliness, self-control, and modesty; (3) perseverance and determination under discouraging conditions, and (4) observance of the rules of the game and fairness toward opponents.

-------
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