IT was an astonishing act of bravery - one of many in a brutal war that lasted for four long years.

Glasgow-born Henry Ranken was a captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps when the Great War broke out in 1914.

He was attached to the 1st King's Royal Rifle Corps in September of that year, at Hautes-Avesnes, in France.

On the 19th and 20th of that month, he and his colleagues came under shrapnel and rifle fire.

Captain Ranken suffered a severe injury to the leg as he was attending to soldiers in the field.

He was bleeding profusely from a shattered leg and thigh. He managed to stop the bleeding and to bind his wounds as best he could before continuing to deal with other soldiers' wounds.

It was a while before he agreed to be moved to the rear at Braine. But his wounds was so severe that his leg had to be amputated.

Captain Ranken died a few days later, on September 25.

The previous month, he had been awarded the Croix de Chevalier of the French Legion d'Honneur for showing gallant conduct under fire.

His deeds earned him the Victoria Cross, Britain's highest accolade for military valour. His VC was presented to his father by King George V at Buckingham Palace on November 29, 1916.

Captain Ranken's bravery and selflessness has now earned him a place in a comprehensive new book that details all of the 628 VCs awarded for valour during the First World War.

Many of the VCs are from Glasgow and the west of Scotland.

July 1, 1916, has gone down as the most fateful day in British military history. Some 20,000 British soldiers died on that one day alone.

Glasgow-born Water Ritchie was a drummer with the Seaforth Highlanders, His battalion was to be in the second wave of what was known as the 'Big Push' on July 1.

The battalion was part of a division whose point of attack was near the village of Beaumont-Hamel, including a German stronghold known as Redan Ridge.

But not everything went to plan. When the 2nd Seaforths made their move. many of them were cut down by machine-gun and artillery fire. The first wave had been decimated, and it seemed that the second wave would suffer the same fate.

As the battle progressed, many British officers were killed. Many soldiers were by now obeying a natural instinct to fall back.

But it was now that Drummer Ritchie came into his own.

In the words of author Robert Hamilton, "he brought a semblance of calm and cohesion to the scene by the simple expedient of mounting an enemy parapet and and sounding the charge repeatedly on his bugle.

"That clarion call, and the example set by a bugler who made himself a clear target in rallying the troops, had a steadying effect," adds Hamilton.

"It would not alter the course of the battle ... The 2nd Seaforth Highlanders alone lost one-third of its strength killed or wounded, over 300 casualties.

"But the carnage of July 1 did allow heroism to come to the fore, and Ritchie was one of nine men put forward for the Victoria Cross."

He received his VC at the Palace on November 25, 1916.

Four years later he was one of 100 VCs who formed a guard of honour at the internment of the Unknown Soldier at Westminster Abbey.

He survived for many years - he died in Edinburgh, in 1965, aged 72.

David Lauder was a private with the Royal Scots Fusiliers at Gallipoli, in Turkey, in August 1915.

He was the eldest son of a tailor and was born in Airdrie.

At the height of the Gallipoli campaign, Lauder threw a grenade at the enemy. But it rebounded off the parapet - and landed in the middle of his own group.

He barely had seconds in which to react.

He placed his foot on the grenade and managed to contain the blast. No member of the group was hurt - but Lauder, who was just 21 at the time, lost the lower part of his limb.

He was later fitted with an artificial limb.

Lauder was presented with his VC by the King at the Palace on March 3, 1917. Afterwards, he was greeted by admirers, and held aloft.

He lived until well into his 70s, and when he died, in June 1972, he was cremated at Glasgow's Daldowie Crematorium.

** Victoria Cross Heroes of World War One: 628 Extraordinary Stories of Valour, by Robert Hamilton; Atlantic Publishing, £40.