Pte. David Calder 93rd Battalion/ 18th Battalion 195807

David Smith Calder 195807

David Smith Calder was born in Dummer Township on June 08, 1874 to parents Phoebe (Fry) and James Calder.  James appeared to have passed away before David was 16 years of age, and the family was supported by three older brothers, all in their twenties. 

Calder's Attestation File Click Here to Access Service File

David enlisted in the Peterborough 93rd Battalion on March 16, 1916.  He was over 41 years old at the time, stood 5 foot 10 inches tall and weighed 144 pounds.  He had a fresh complexion; hazel eyes and dark brown hair.  He was unmarried, listed his occupation as labourer and his religion as Presbyterian.  He also indicated that he had 9 years previous service with the 57^th Peterboro Regiment, a permanent militia regiment based in the city.  He was assigned to D Company in the 93^rd Battalion.

David Calder left Montreal with the 93^rd Battalion aboard the Empress of Britain and arrived in England on July 25^th 1916.  The Peterboro Battalion was soon broken up and its ranks sent to other battalions already engaged at the front.  Pte. Calder was among a few who were reassigned to the 18^th Battalion.  He reported for duty in the field on September 16, 1916.

Calder joined the 18^th Battalion as it was taking part in the major Allied offensive known as the Somme Offensive.  The very day Calder arrived, his battalion was coming out of the trenches after their bloody attack on the enemy lines at the “Sugar Refinery” at Courcellette.  He was one of 57 reinforcements that arrived that very day to help rebuild the shattered battalion.  The 18^th moved to billets miles away from the front lines and used the next ten days to prepare for the next major assault on the enemy's trenches. On the 26^th of October the Canadians launched another attack on the German lines at Courcellette, the 18^th Battalion was kept in reserve during this attack, owing by all probability to the fact it was still under strength from the attack 10 days previously.

Private David Calder would have experienced his first time “going over the top” on October 1^st, as the 18^th was part of the first wave attack against German lines on the renewed offensive at Courcellete.  They were on the left of the Canadian attack, charged with capturing minor German trenches in front of the formidable Regina Trench.  They successfully advanced behind a creeping barrage and initially captured their trenches without much difficulty.  They spent a miserable night enduring rain, enemy shellfire and a German counterattack.  They moved out of their newly won positions on the 3^rd of October and moved back into a reserve at the position referred to as Sausage Valley.  The 18^th Battalion was afforded the position of not being part of the next and final, Canadian attack in the Somme Offensive on October 8^th.  Rather, the 18^th spent the time in reserve, off the front line. 

As the Somme Offensive fizzled out, the 18^th stayed in the area, but went into more regular routines of a six day routine: six days in the front lines, six in reserve trenches and the same in rest billets in the .   Calder spent the first half of November within this routine before  he reported to the rest camp with severe pains in his legs and arms on November 16^th.  He later admitted to doctors that he started experiencing pains in the arches of his feet two weeks after arriving in France.  He was immediately sent to the No.7 Canadian Stationary Hospital in La Harve, France on November 29, 1916 and shortly there-after to England.  He bounced around to different English hospitals from December to March 917, all the while still suffering from pains in his shins, ankles, knees and elbows, especially aggravated during the cold weather.  An exam undertaken in March, noted that Calder was “thin and badly nourished” as well as looking older than his stated age.  He was treated with mineral baths, which made his eczema better, but provided little change in his myalgia.

He was discharged on June 11, 1917 and was invalided back to Canada that day, as he was no longer considered fit for service.  Upon arriving in Kingston he entered a convalescent home, and was soon diagnosed with slightly flat feet, varicose veins, and a deformed right arch, that was likely a cause much of the pain in his lower limbs.

Pte. David Calder's grave in Little Lake Cemetery, Peterborough

Calder was awarded a 20% disability pension for his myalgia and another 20% for a duration of 2 months for his eczema.  Doctors ruled that both conditions were present before enlisting, yet they were aggravated by service.  They also stated that though Pte. Calder claimed to be 42, but that he looked like a man of 50 years of age.

Calder continued to convalesce at Queen’s Military Hospital in Kingston throughout most of 1917, until he was released on December 11th of that year.  David Calder returned to Dummer Township where he shows up on the 1921 census employed as a mason.  David Calder died on October 07, 1943.  

Source:

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

Cook, Tim. “At the Sharp End: Canadians Fighting The Great War 1914-1916. Volume One. Toronto: Viking Canada. 2007.

Library and Archives Canada online: (www.collectionscanada.gc.ca), Census of 1881. Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

Library and Archives Canada online: (www.collectionscanada.gc.ca), Census of 1891. Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. 2008.

Library and Archives Canada online: (www.collectionscanada.gc.ca), Census of 1901. Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. 2004.

Library and Archives Canada online: (www.collectionscanada.gc.ca), Sixth Census of Canada, 1921. Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. 2013.

Library and Archives Canada online: (www.collectionscanada.gc.ca), “Complete Service File: Calder David Smith”. Accessed November 29, 2014.

Pte. Thomas A. Walbridge 21st Batt. Nov. 17 1917*

Pte. Thomas Albert Walbridge 636613

*notes:  The date of death (Nov. 17 1917) inscribed on the cenotaph does not match official records (Nov. 12 1917).  Also Walbridge is often spelled Wallbridge in official documents,

Thomas Albert Walbridge was born on June 14, 1890 in Seymour Township, Northumberland, Ontario to parents Albert and Elizabeth Walbridge.  By 1911, the Canadian census informs us that the Walbridge’s, along with 19 year-old Thomas, were farming in Dummer Township, Ontario.  The census also indicates that the family was of German heritage. 

On February 16^th 1916, Thomas walked into a recruiting office in Stirling, Ontario and enlisted into the 155^th Quinte Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force. He was 25 years old, listed his occupation as farmer, and indicated that he had no previous military experience.  He listed his mother as his next of kin, and it is recorded that she lived in Indian River, a small village in the township next to Dummer.  Walbridge was recorded as being 5 foot 6 ½ inches tall, having a clean complexion, dark brown hair, brown eyes.  His religion was Methodist.

The Battalion trained in the Kingston area at Barriefield Camp, and later sailed for England in October of 1916.  His battalion arrived in Liverpool, England aboard the S.S. Northland on October 28^th and proceeded to Bramshott Camp for further training.  Walbridge ran into trouble almost immediately, as it is recorded in his service record that he was sentenced to two weeks detention and fined 88 day’s pay for an unrecorded offence only two days after arriving in camp.

Like many newly arrived Canadian battalions at the time, it was broken up and its men re-assigned to other “fighting” battalions already at the front.  After serving his sentence Walbridge was one of a draft of 147 men who were assigned to the 21^st Battalion on December 5^th 1916.  He traveled to France the next day to the Canadian Base Depot at Roucelles and was immediately admitted to the No.39 General Hospital for scabies.  He was discharged a week later.

Like many men who landed in France, Walbridge did not immediately join his assigned battalion, but rather traveled a circuitous route through one or more of the various assembly depots, or reinforcement bases on his way to the front.  The 2^nd Canadian Entrenching Battalion was one such stop on his journey.  During his time in this battalion, from December 29^th to February 22^nd 1917, Walbridge would have been employed in building, fixing and expanding the network of reserve and front-line trenches.  The experience of a newly arrived soldier to France being employed to an Entrenching Battalion was a common one and was largely used to “acclimatize” green troops to the rigours of life at the front.

Walbridge finally joined the 21^st Battalion in the reserve trenches near Arras, France on February 22^nd 1917.  He would have spent the next month preparing for the attack on Vimy Ridge and holding the line in that section of trenches.  Walbridge was likely in the attack on the Ridge and joined the 21^st Battalion in the second wave of the attack, to seize the objective of Les Tilleuls, a small hamlet oclose to the center of the battleground. He came through the battle unwounded.

Walbridge would have continued to see considerable fighting throughout 1917 and would have likely been with the 21^st Battalion, in their attacks at Fresnoy (May), Hill 70 (August) and Lens (August).

By November of 1917, the Canadians took their turn in the horrific mud and slaughter of the Passchendaele campaign.  The 21^st Battalion moved into the front on the night of November 2-3^rd.  During the night of November 9^th, Pte. Walbridge was part of a large work party sent out to rebuild damaged trenches near the front lines.  While moving not the area, a German artillery shell landed in the midst of the men, killing and wounding many of them. Pte. Walbridge was one of those who was instantly killed.  Walbridge’s body was recovered from the battlefield and buried in White House Cemetery, in Ypres, Belgium. He is also commemorated on the Dummer Township cenotaph in Warsaw, Ontario.

 Sources:

Canada. "Soldiers of the First World War (1914-1918)." Record Group 150, Accession 1992-93/166, Box 4930 - 35. Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa.

War Graves Registry: Circumstances of Death Records; (RG150, 1992-1993/314, Boxes 39-144); Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa, Ontario.

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.
"The 21st Battalion CEF" [Website]  Al Lloyd, Webmaster. Thomas Albert Walbridge (page).  <http://21stbattalion.ca/tributetz/walbridge_ta.html>  Accessed Nov, 2018.