The fact that Signals were able to maintain an efficient service throughout these operations was largely due to the energy and skill of the officer commanding the 51st Divisional Signal Company, Major J. Muirhead, D.S.O., M.C.
In short, probably no previous operation had demanded a greater or more prolonged effort on the part of all arms and branches of the service than this, the last fight of the Highland Division.
[CHAPTER XIX.]
CONCLUSION.
The Divisional artillery came out of action in the neighbourhood of Famars on 2nd November, but returned to the line on 6th November under orders of the C.R.A. 56th Division. They remained attached to the advancing Divisions until the declaration of the armistice at 11 A.M. on 11th November, within forty-eight hours of the second anniversary of the battle of Beaumont Hamel.
With the armistice ends the real history of the Highland Division, and it is well to leave the story of the gradual fading away of the Division during the period of demobilisation untold. Suffice it to say that the last commander who finally hauled down the Divisional flag was Brigadier-General L. Oldfield, C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O., the C.R.A., who had joined the Division on July 1916, and had served longer with it than any other of its Brigadiers.
The last of the battalions that had served with the Division left in Belgium or France was the 8th Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, who remained at Charleroi under the command of Major Andrew Lockie. Attached to this battalion were a number of non-demobilisable Jocks from many different battalions, and it in consequence came to be known as the 8th Argyll and some other Highlanders.
No history of the Highland Division would be complete without a word spoken about both the incomparable Jock and his adversary the Boche.
That the Boche was such a magnificent fighter reflects more to the credit of the Highland Division probably than any other factor. The picture of the Boche as a fat, crop-eared, spectacled, middle-aged gentleman, holding up his hands and crying “Kamerad,” was a libellous portrait of him that appeared almost daily in the illustrated press, and sickened the men who had to fight him.