Second Lieutenant Norman Mackay, R.E. had graduated from Royal Military College in Kingston, Ontario in May 1917, and had received his commission to the Royal Engineers at that time. He sailed for England immediately after and trained at Chatham, Kent at the Royal Engineers’ base there. In February 1918 he arrived in France. On August 6,he was one of five officers and about two hundred men taken prisoner by the Germans just prior to the August 8 offensive by the Allies that marked the beginning of the end of the First World War.

Lieutenant Norman Mackay served in III Corps, 18th Division, 80th Field Company of the British Fourth Army. He was captured just North of the Somme, south of the main Bray-Corbie read, near Morlancourt. Australians had taken the trenches the week before and the engineers were connecting 2 shafts of a former German dugout by a gallery in preparation for the major assault of the 8th. The capture took place at daybreak as the lines were changing. At this time soldiers entering and leaving the trenches had the least chance of being observed by the enemy. Evidently the approach to the trench was down a slope and concealment almost impossible. There was great trepidation amongst the British command that the captives would reveal the plans for the huge assault two days later. Fortunately, this did not occur, as captured German records of interrogations later confirmed.

Do you have an ancestor who served in the Great War? Submit their story and it could be included on this Great War Album website.