Pte. Herbert Calberry 1st Dp. Batt. Sept 30 1918.

 

Pte. Herbert Calberry 3055529

Herbert Calberry was born on October 31^st 1895 in Dummer Township, to parents Frank Calberry and Livina Newell.  Frank was employed in farming between the Township’s 4^th and 5^th lines.  Herb was conscripted into the 1^st Depot Battalion, Eastern Ontario Regiment on January 07 1918.  He was the 2^nd son of the family to enter the battlefields of France during the First World War, his older brother, Gordon having previously enlisted in 1915. 

 Herbert was taken on strength into the 38^th Canadian Infantry Battalion on 9-10th of August 1918.  By the end of the month, Pte. Calberry and his comrades in the 38^th entered the Battle of Canal Du Nord, a difficult Canadian offensive meant to punch through the German line around Cambrai.  On September 27^th, the beginning day of the battle, the 38^th was charged with leap-frogging attacking troops and carrying the advance against the vital area around the town of Bourlon.  They captured their objectives with hard fighting and dug in as other battalions advanced beyond them. 

Two days later, on September 29^th, the 38^thBattalion, now left with only about half their initial battalion strength, kicked off the Canadian attack of that day. They pressed on through a vicious enemy artillery barrage and streams of machine gun bullets to capture their positions.  One historian wrote that the ranks of the battalion were so depleted upon capturing their objectives, that their prisoners outnumbered them four to one.

During the attack of the 29^th Herbert Calberry was struck in the head and instantly killed by a machine gun bullet while crossing the Douai-Cambrai Road. His body was recovered and buried in the Bourlon Wood Cemetery 4 ½  miles West of Cambrai, (II.A.16).  Pte. Herbert Calberry is honoured on the Dummer Township cenotaph in Warsaw, Ontario. In a sad note: The Calberry family would have received the news of Herbert’s death merely a month after his older brother Gordon was killed in France.

The Battalion War Diaries describing the heavy machine gun fire that the 38th met during the morning of September 29, 1918.

Sources:
Archives of Ontario. Registrations of Births and Stillbirths – 1869-1913. MS 929, reels 1-245. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Archives of Ontario.

Cook Tim. Shock Troops: Canadians Fightign the Great War, 1917-1918. Viking Canada: 2008.

Library and Archives Canada. Census of Canada, 1901. Ottawa, Ontario, Canada: Library and Archives Canada, 2004. <http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/databases/census-1901/index-e.html>. Series RG31-C-1. Statistics Canada Fonds. Microfilm reels: T-6428 to T-6556.
Library and Archives Canada. Census of Canada, 1911. Ottawa, Ontario, Canada: Library and Archives Canada, 2007. <http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/databases/census-1911/index-e.html>. Series RG31-C-1. Statistics Canada Fonds. Microfilm reels T-20326 to T-20460.
Library and Archives Canada; Ottawa, Ontario, Canada; War Graves Registers: Circumstances of Death; Record Group Number: RG 150, 1992-93/314; Volume Number: 161.