Account of the experiences of Alpin MacGregor, 1st Gordon Highlanders, as a Prisoner of War, 1918, and notes on interviews conducted by his father, Rev Duncan MacGregor, with soldiers repatriated to Holland, early 1918.

Alpin MacGregor was a Sergeant Major in the 1st Gordon Highlanders. In the regular army when the First World War broke out, MacGregor`s was amongst the first battalions to form the British Expeditionary Force in August 1914. In the retreat following the battle at Le Cateau, the 1st Gordon Highlanders found themselves isolated at Caudry. After disagreement between the Gordons` commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel F. H. Neish, and his second in command further delayed the battalion`s withdrawal, the Gordons encountered the German army on the outskirts of Bertry. In the confusion of night, most of the men were killed or taken prisoner and 500 men were forced to surrender.

MacGregor was one of the survivors, and spent most of the war in captivity. He was interned at Sennelager, Westphalia. In early 1915, he noticed irregularities in the letters of his father, Rev Duncan MacGregor. He realised that he was using code, and father and son soon established a means of passing secret messages, and Alpin was able to communicate intelligence he picked up in the camp back to the UK. When soldiers of the British Army were repatriated to Holland in February 1918, Rev Duncan MacGregor interviewed a number of these men, and scripts from his interviews form the bulk of this file.