A BONNYBRIDGE man will follow his grandfather‘s footsteps to the Western Front this summer, 100 years on from the start of the First World War battle in which he was captured.

Michael McMahon, who is named after his grandfather, will join more than 4,000 descendants from across the UK who have been invited to special ceremonies marking 100 years since the Battle of Passchendaele.

As well as Scots serving in other English or Irish battalions, all three Scottish Divisions on the Western Front (the 51st (Highland) Division, the 9th Division and the 15th Division) took part in the Battle which lasted from July to November 1917 and caused an estimated 250,000 British and Commonwealth casualties.

Michael will attend a commemorative service at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Tyne Cot (CWGC) cemetery on 31 July to mark the start of the battle and to remember his grandfather’s service.

It comes after a nationwide search, launched by UK Culture Secretary Karen Bradley in January, for descendants with a family link to the troops who served on the Ypres Salient from 1914 and 1918.

Michael Sylvester McMahon was born in 1894 in a British Army barracks in Cawnpore (now Kanpur), India, to Sergeant James McMahon and his wife Elizabeth. Michael came to Bonnybridge as a young man around 1913 and was employed at the stove and brickmakers Smith and Wellstood.

He enlisted in his father’s old regiment, the Royal Munster Fusiliers, at Stirling Castle on the 31 August 1916 after initially being rejected for not being tall enough. But Michael insisted that as a son of the regiment he should be allowed to enlist.

Michael and his division were involved in some of the notable actions of the Western Front in 1917. This included the German retreat to the Hindenburg Line in March, and Operation Hush, the cancelled British amphibious landings on the Flanders coast which ended in the British defence of Nieuport in July.

The Fusiliers were then tasked with contributing to the Second Battle of Passchendaele, the final battle in the major Allied campaign of 1917. The overall aim of the Passchendaele campaign was to break through the German lines to destroy the submarine bases on the Belgian coast.

In support of Canadian forces, Michael was part of two battalions who advanced at 6am on 10 November, the last day of the costly campaign. Their objective was a small crossroads on high ground near the village of Passchendaele. With the local irrigation system destroyed by three years of fighting, the battlefield had become a waterlogged quagmire in which men and horses drowned.

Despite the muddy conditions, the men reached the crossroads within 45 minutes. But Michael was captured in the German counterattack and was initially posted as missing. His family were not told he was still alive for over a month.

Michael was first held in a holding camp at Dendermonde, Belgium, and then spent the rest of the war at various POW camps in the Westphalia region of Germany. He was repatriated back to Britain in December 1918 where he was transferred to the Royal Army Service Corp working as a driver in London.

His discharge from the army eventually came on 27 July 1919 and nearly two years after the start of the Battle of Passchendaele, Michael was finally able to return to his wife and family in Bonnybridge.

As well as those like Michael who received tickets in a public ballot, many more descendants and visitors will join the commemorations on the eve of the centenary in Ypres’ historic Market Square. There will be an evening of live performance with archive footage and photographs projected onto Cloth Hall to tell the story of the Battle.

Among the 4000 descendants, 200 will take part in a Last Post ceremony under the CWGC Menin Gate, the memorial to the missing in Ypres, Belgium, that bears the name of their relatives.

With no living veterans of the First World War, their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren stand at the heart of the government’s official commemorations. These descendants have been invited to share their ancestor’s stories with the wider public online, including in a series of videos, the first of which has been released.

Michael said: “Although my grandfather was one of the lucky ones who managed to make it home, he rarely spoke about the War and it is difficult to imagine what the horrors of the battlefields and incarceration as a prisoner of war must have been like for him. It will be a great honour to be present at the ceremony to remember those like him who served and died at such a terrible battle.”

Culture Secretary Karen Bradley said:

“As we continue to commemorate the centenary of the First World War, it is important that we remember the horrors of the battlefields of Ypres and honour the many who lost their lives. It is the descendants of those who experienced Passchendaele who can help tell its story and it is hugely symbolic for them to be able stand on Belgian soil to remember their relatives’ service and sacrifice.

“We also want people in villages, towns and cities across Britain to join in commemorating Passchendaele on 31 July. The battle affected families and communities all over the country and is a significant part of our four-year programme of events marking the First World War’s centenary.”

The commemorations will start with a traditional Last Post Ceremony at the CWGC Menin Gate in Ypres on the eve of the centenary, 30 July 2017.

On 31 July 2017, to mark the centenary of the Third Battle of Ypres, the focus will shift to the official ceremony at the CWGC Tyne Cot cemetery.

Located at Zonnebeke, seven miles outside Ypres, Tyne Cot is the largest burial ground for Commonwealth forces in the world, where 12,000 soldiers are interred and a memorial wall holds the names of 35,000 soldiers who have no known grave.

On 30 and 31 July the nearby Memorial Park Passchendaele will host a visitor experience focusing on what life was like both on and behind the frontlines with talks, film, musical performance, children’s poetry, battlefield artefacts including a howitzer and living history displays.

Conditions at Passchendaele were so horrific that they defined this major battle of the First World War. Bogged down by thick mud caused by heavy rain and bombardment, troops suffered heavy losses as they battled uphill to take the Passchendaele ridge. By 10 November 1917, the British eventually claimed a victory despite suffering huge losses for very little territorial gain.

The government is also encouraging families to share their Passchendaele story at livesofthefirstworldwar.org. For more information on the UK national commemorative events to mark the centenary of Passchendaele visit www.passchendaele100.org.