Book and TV show set to tell the story of the Bute-born American soldier who was among the 200 men who died when their ship was sunk by a German U-boat during the First World War 100 years ago

By Kevin Quinn
via the Buteman (Scotland) web site

BUTE, UK — On February 5, 1918, German submarine UB-77 sank a British troopship, SS Tuscania, between Rathlin Island and Islay. More than 200 men died – most of them young American ‘Doughboys’ on their way to the trenches of World War One.

But one of these lost ‘Americans’ was actually a Buteman who had emigrated to the USA and had got caught up in the war in 1917, just after American joined the Allied cause against the Kaiser’s Germany.

The story of how Bute’s Alexander McAlister became a soldier and victim of a U-boat was discovered by writer and documentary film-maker, Les Wilson from Port Charlotte, while researching a book about the sinking, The Drowned and the Saved, and a documentary for BBC ALBA.

“I discovered from the US records that there were two Scots-born Doughboys lost on the Tuscania, and had their names,’” said Les.

“I knew that one of them, John Sloss came from Kilwinning, but I had no idea where Alexander McAlister came from. I had been sharing information with an American researcher and one day, out of the blue, she e-mailed me as my wife was driving us to Wemyss Bay to catch the Rothesay ferry where we were travelling to attend a dinner. She said McAlister came from Bute, where he died in hospital and is buried. I was flabbergasted.”

Les discovered that Alexander McAlister was from a large family that farmed at Meikle Kilmory, and that Alexander had emigrated to America, where he was employed as a horseman in a college which is now part of the American University in Washington DC.

The 27-year- old Scot was one of 2000 soldiers who clambered onto the Tuscania in New York Harbour on January 24, 1918. The Tuscania was part of the 12-vessel convoy bound for Liverpool. Relatively safe in the wide Atlantic, the ‘danger zone’ for convoys was the entrance to the North Channel, between Ireland and the coast of Scotland. This was the U-boats’ hunting ground.

Les said: “Shortly after sunrise on February 5 , Kapitan Wilhelm Meyer of UB-77 spotted the convoy through his periscope. After a lengthy game of cat and mouse Meyer fired two torpedoes. The Tuscania was hit and quickly began to sink. While most of the crew and the soldiers were rescued more than 200 men were lost when their lifeboats were driven onto the cliffs of Islay’s Oa peninsula in the dark.

Read the whole article on the Buteman web site:

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