Lest we forget - canadian grave

[Gil Boyd]

As some may already be aware I am heavily involved in a system called GRAVEWATCH which I founded many years ago, looking after the graves of PARACHUTE REGIMENT soldiers buried around the UK and the rest of the world.
There I was having taken my wife to Jersey for a four day break for her birthday last week, and having a meal in a pub, as you do, overlooking St Marys Churchyard on the Island.
I spotted a lone Commonwealth Portland gravestone in the cemetery and went over to see who it was.
I recorded what it said on the stone:
PTE 105442 PHILIP FRANCIS LE CORNIJ 14TH BN CANADIAN INFANTRY DIED ON THE 14TH SEPT 1918 AGED 24 YEARS

On return home I decided to find out how this young lad met his fate and also how he was repatriated, when no one was allowed to be repatriated unless you were a wealthy family from other stock!!
Here was this solitary grave in a fairly large graveyard. I searched my CWWG spreadsheet and could not find him anywhere. I contacted my direct liaiason at the head office at CWWG and he too was baffled.
Through a lot of searches between us, we established two important factors. One his service number was incorrect it should have read 1054442 and his surname was spelt LE CORNU.
It then became easy to establish how he had died and how had eneded up in Jersey miles from the battlefield but off the west coast of France.
He was wounded on the 15th August 1917 at one of the worst battles which was the Battle of Passchendaele, and died on the 14th September 1918 of his wounds on the island.

I attach a copy of the families background from CWWG papers held as he clearly decided to go back to his roots for whatever reason and join up in a Quebec based unit probably reflecting relatives and his families birthplace before coming to live in Jersey.

Most of these lone gravestones provide so much history as to how someone died and always worth a look at.................LEST WE FORGET his sacrifice on our behalf.

Information

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[Eaglelord17]

I know Canadian doctrine up until the late 60s was to bury them where you died. The members of the HMCS Kootenay explosion in 1969, were all either buried at sea or buried in the UK as it was the closest country. Many people tried to repatriate there bodies, even offering to pay the expenses but the military refused as it was against policy. It ended up being repealed sometime after that, likely as a direct result of that incident. I am not sure what the policy was back in WWI for Canadians, but I could see it being the same.

[Gil Boyd]

In our case, it was as late as Northern Ireland in 1969 when things started to change and the lads were brought home, as we have lots of lads buried in Aden and that was middle to late 60's.
During the Falklands Conflict a choice was then open to families for them to be buried there or brought home. We now know what happens today, all are brought home.
I am sure that Canada followed UK military policy therafter too.

[CINDERS]

This is what it is all about remembering and keeping them honored for what they did and less than a month before the end of The War To End All Wars, I wonder if the Commonwealth graves commission will alter the gravestone or leave it. I guess if it is logged on his records then the original gravestone can remain just that untouched. Well done Gil............a humble meal which led you to that place and that find.
Passchendaele ~ Third battle of Ypres (EE-P or Wipers to the troops) the whole battle was often remembered by the troops as just mud, mud and more mud and like most battles in WWI was pure slaughter, 19th century tactics and 20th century weapons.

[Gil Boyd]

I didn't realise how many Canadians died there having been there many times over the years.
Everytime I go I find out even more about that bloody war, which was supposed to end all wars. How our Politicians spoke so easily about the sacrifice made by so many young men from ALL over the world, from every nation. It wiped out a generation here in the UK, so what did it do to the rest of the nations??
Vimy Ridge is remarkable if you haven't been there before and you get a chance to visit.
Canadian Students are seconded there for 2 years and what they don't know about the battle for the ridge isn't worth knowing about. A real and lasting credit to all Canadian people and Forces who served and continue to serve. When you see concrete covered trenches 30 feet away from each other at the closest point, it is truly remarkable anybody came home

[henry r]

gil, it did the same here in Australia. i'm only 40 but still remember meeting ladies who never married because there just weren't enough men left to go around.

mind you, i also remember my mothers reaction when i asked her, loudly, why the two old men we had just walked past had numbers tattoo on their arms.

it makes me sad, that to my younger children, it is all just stories they won't be able to put faces too.

[oldpaul]

Several years ago my wife and I visited the Canadian memorial at Vimy Ridge, among other Great War battlefields. The first picture is from from the German trenches and the Canadian flag(Canada would have been flying the Union Jack at the time) is at the Canadian trench line. An easy grenade throw as Gil said. The student that escorted and narrated history to our group told us that the ridge was not taken until Canadian soldiers had. I told him about the French colonial 1st Moroccan Division who had captured the ridge but were unable to hold it because they didn't have reinforcements, but he would have none of it. His name was Ross but no relation to Sir Charles he said. A very nice young man. The second picture is a bomb/artillery crater. The picture really doesn't do it justice as the outer edges are within twenty feet of a trench and perhaps two hundred feet in diameter. "Who would fardels bear". Tom

[CINDERS]

Imagine charging over open ground against an elevated position with a well armed adversary with lots of ammunition and MG's I guess each country has its sad memories from that god awful conflict, Frommelles, Somme, Vimy, Ypres x 3, Cambrai, Pozieres on and on it goes as did the losses.
When I stood on the Arizona memorial I was pretty much dumb struck it was quite an unsettling experience to stand and look down at her shattered hulk and then face that wall with oh so many names etched into it and the real irony of it there were allot of people from that country taking happy snaps I took a few just so I could remember them and thought how ludicrous the situation was at that point in time, it was not their generation but I found it weird.

When I went to the ACT as I have done a few times and walked along the bronze wall with all those diggers names I also remember pictures I have seen of the very dark wall dedicated to those in the USA that gave up their lives in that other place so far from home. Its pretty darn hard not to feel touched and quite emotional about what they had to endure.
I am just reading a book on Slaves to the War Lords about a soldier from England experiences on the Western front and have just finished where he was in the Somme episode and just how he describes that battlefield, being lost and often their view of the world was just a strip of sky above the trench. As for meals most ate their rations when they got them as their chances of returning to enjoy it later were marginal to say the least.

As long as there are the types like Gil and others I am sure that those that gave it all will for ever be a candle to us free folk no matter how dark the world gets.......................

[Anzac15]

The amount of info from you guys regarding the Great War is very much appreciated. As an American, I realize that compared to what the countries of England, France, Germany sacrificed our forces barely bloodied their noses ( mind you, I'm not belittling my own countrymen ) I have always been fascinated by the First World War, and hope to see the battlefields of the Western Front soon. It would be great to get to France next year to observe the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme.

[Gil Boyd]

I have studied the Gallipoli campaign (slaughter) in some detail too, not wishing to go off the subject of the Canadian grave in Jersey and how this thread started, but I look at the losses Australia had in Turkey in 1915.
Sadly whilst the Great War was going on in France and Belgium, there were hundreds of thousands of men tied up on a bloody beach. It just blows your mind. Why did the Generals not see they had to breakout at all costs to get out of that awful killing ground. When one of them tried a daring flanking attack on another beach up the coast as bodies started piling up, what did they do, sit on that beach too, without getting off it....unbelievable, but easy to speak about whilst I sit in my armchair tapping the keys to the computer!!

Now that is a graveyard to behold, what an absolute waste.
Roll that forward 24 years and those men on the DDAY beaches. Had they not got off that beach they would have been slaughtered.
If you ever come over to England please do visit the American Cemetery at Madingley, just outside Cambridge........ thousands of airman and sailors row after row, kept in prestine condition for all time.
I go at least once a year when USAF Mildenhall and Lakenheath provide the guard of honour of hundreds of men and women in May, and their jets fly over with the missing wing man too..........very moving sight, especially when the Dakota and others make it as well if the weather holds. I don't think I have ever been when the sun is shining though, so apt for England!!
There are so many men on that great wall with the Medal of Honour it takes your breath away along with many famous names. I am sure walls like this exist in many far flung places too, that people drive by the cemetery, but never know whats in there or really care