Elizabeth Taylor MacKay lived at Easter Rarichie, her parents were Donald [a cattleman] and Johan Mackay, she was their eldest daughter.

Elizabeth was a housemaid to the Rugg family in Wester Rarichie before war broke out in 1939. Elizabeth, or Bess, as she was known in the family, at the start of hostilities volunteered to join the Woman’s Royal Army Corp [WRAC], she became part of the Auxiliary Territorial Service [ATS] and trained as a signaller, attached to the 103rd Anti Aircraft Brigade.

Elisabeth was posted to Great Yarmouth, a fishing port on the Norfolk coast, and along with 26 other ATS women, was involved in the air defences in the town.

On the 11th of May 1943, early in the morning, so early there was still mist rising over the sea, eighteen Focke Wulf 190’s came out of the mist at sea level on a bombing raid on the town, it was so sudden, by the time the air raid warning sirens went off, bombs were already falling. Elisabeth and the other ATS women were doing physical exercises before breakfast in the courtyard outside their sleeping quarters, they all rushed back into the building for cover only for a bomb to explode in the building as they entered it. The building was obliterated by the explosion and 26 ATS women were killed, the biggest single loss of life of British Service Women in World War Two. Only one woman survived, she had fallen in the dash to get inside the building.

Elisabeth’s body was returned home for burial in Nigg Cemetery and she is also commemorated on the Nigg War Memorial.