4225 Pte George Hogg, 2nd Royal Scots

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Arrived overseas: 23 October 1914.

Connection: 1914 Star trio.

George Hogg had an interesting army career service in the First World War, enlisting with the Royal Scots as a Special Reservist on the 23rd September 1914. He was then 42 years old and had previously served as a career soldier with the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders, serving for 12 years. His earlier regimental number, 1717, suggests he joined the Argylls as a 14-year-old boy in 1886, almost certainly signing up in the band. Boys always enlisted for 12 years with no reserve service, and this prior military experience may help to explain why George, with precisely one month's service with the Royal Scots under his belt, found himself disembarking in France on the 23rd October 1914 as part of a draft for the 2nd Battalion.

George served with the Royal Scots until November 1915 when he was discharged with "early locomotor ataxy". Not one to be put off by the small matter of muscle control, George re-enlisted in June 1917 with the Royal Defence Corps and was assigned to 250 Protection Company. In November that year he was transferred to the Labour Corps - regimental number 320146 - and to 465 Agricultural Labour Company. In August 1918 the powers that be decreed that "this soldier is not considered suitable for an agricultural company" and so he was duly transferred to Scottish Command Labour Centre before being compulsorily transferred to the 16th Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders - regimental number 351554. He was struck of strength in January 1919, thus completing his army service with the same regiment that he had joined as a boy 33 years earlier.

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