The Drowned and the Saved: When War Came to the Hebrides

Next morning at about 6 o'clock my mother wakened us to say there had been a shipwreck and bodies were being washed ashore. My father had gone with others to look for survivors ... I don't think any survivors came in at Port Ellen but bodies did.

The loss of two British ships crammed with American soldiers bound for the trenches of the First World War brought the devastation of war directly to the shores of the Scottish island of Islay.

Th...