Remembrance Day: Armed Forces

Torcuil Crichton Excerpts

Tuesday 11th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Torcuil Crichton (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (Lab)]

Madam Deputy Speaker, it was a pleasure to join you today at the remembrance service in Westminster Hall, and it was an honour to attend services in Tarbert, Harris in my constituency and at the Lewis war memorial in Stornoway at the weekend. The years are passing, but the numbers attending are not diminishing, which is perhaps not surprising in the Western Isles because we have a very high proportion of veterans who have served.

Historically, certainly in world war one, the islands suffered a disproportionately high number of men lost in comparison with the rest of the Commonwealth. Military historians tell us that that is because the reserve forces such as the Cameron Highlanders, the Seaforth Highlanders and the Gordon Highlanders were thrown into action early in the war, and many were lost in November 1914, before the Regular Army had even deployed in France. Island losses were compounded by the loss of the yacht Iolaire, a ship requisitioned as a troop carrier, which struck the rocks less than 1 mile out of Stornoway harbour on new year’s eve 1919 with the loss of 200 returning sailors within a mile of their home. This event became the crowning sorrow of the war that cast a century of mourning across the islands.

We remembered them, as we remembered all who served, when we gathered on Sunday under the Lewis war memorial, an 85-foot granite tower built to be seen from all parishes of Lewis. Like memorials across the country, the tower and memorial garden bears the names of all those who served and were lost in both world wars—except that it does not bear all the names. Malcolm Macdonald, the chair of Stornoway Historical Society and the author of “The Darkest Dawn”, a book on that Iolaire tragedy, revealed this week that his research shows that 389 names are not listed on the Lewis war memorial where they rightfully should be: 170 from world war one and 219 from world war two. Of those not listed, some are remembered in Commonwealth war graves or on war memorials elsewhere, but even then, 37 men from world war one and 58 from world war two do not appear to have been recognised anywhere. They come from all parishes from all over the islands.

It is the painstaking research of Mr Macdonald—based on his own intimate knowledge, including of the street he grew up on—that has revealed those statistics. On Westview Terrace where he lives, there is only one name from the second world war on the war memorial, yet he knows seven men were lost: No. 1 was Norman Macritchie, who died in Egypt and was in the Royal Navy; No. 3 was James Mackenzie, killed at Arnhem; No. 5 was Kenneth Mackenzie, killed in an RAF crash; No. 9 was William Maclean; and so on—down the street and out across the island. That is an example from one street on one island. If this list of missing men, of lost fallen, is true for the Isle of Lewis, then it must certainly be true for places across the whole country.

There are many reasons why men are missing from the Lewis war memorial. In the first world war, headmasters compiled the names for memorialising, and emigration and a lack of definitive information would have contributed. In world war two, families were simply asked to submit names for the roll of honour, which we now know to be incomplete—389 forgotten war heroes from an island where people do not just know their own history, they know their neighbours’ history and everyone else’s as well.

The kind of assiduous research that Mr Macdonald undertook does not come cheap. He spent years of his own time digging through the force records, looking for ships’ lists and overseas war records—and, Madam Deputy Speaker, if you are looking for one John Macleod in an island of John Macleods, you can see how that adds up.

Three things struck me about this situation. Of course I welcome this week’s announcement of £2 million of funding for the restoration of war memorials across the UK, but I would urge Ministers to go a bit further. We could find funds to help communities complete their rolls of honour by discounting or reimbursing research costs, but not every community has a Stornoway Historical Society and not every one has a Malcolm Macdonald to hand. Looking for the forgotten fallen across the UK is a much bigger task, but one that could, with the cross-fertilisation of existing lists, archival research and the innovative power of artificial intelligence, become a project that would recover the legacy of service and sacrifice, and correct the draft of history inscribed on stone memorials across the country.

I hope the names of the Lewis men are inscribed on a new plaque or in some kind of accessible form—digital or in print—so their losses can be recorded and they can be accorded their rightful status among their comrades. I hope the same can be true of people across the UK and that we can make this a reality—that the Government can step in with an AI project to scour the archives, correct the records and bring back the names of all those who gave their lives for their island home, for this country. Lest we forget.