CBC News - Canada - Canada's last WW I veteran dies

Sadly the last one of 650,000 Canadians to serve in the "war to end all wars" has passed away. John Babcock was 109 years old. I've read that he downplayed his service and his courage because he never faced combat. The fact is that at age 16 he volunteered for combat in World War One at a point where everyone had some idea of the medieval slaughter happening all over the Western Front. That's courage.

Boy hero,
Man of courage,
Bloodless warrior,

Thank you sir for your service.

CBC News - Canada - Canada's last WW I veteran dies

John Daley, My Great Great Uncle - Killed in Action Nov. 6, 1918

Private John Daley, Kings County, Prince Edward Island
Born March 23, 1891 Died in combat Nov. 6, 1918, age 27 years.

John Daley was my maternal grandmother's uncle. He was killed five days before the end of the Great War. The army he fought as part of was ending the period known as "Canada's Hundred Days," a period during which it was at the forefront of some of the most decisive, important victories of the war. He's buried along with 881 other Commonwealth soldiers in the Valenciennes (St. Roch) Communal Cemetery in Northern France, close to the Belgian frontier.

He was killed 2-3 days after the Canadian Corps took the area from the German Army, who had held the area from the war's early days. Uncle John' s unit is listed is listed as the Nova Scotia Highlanders (or the 85th Battalion) although they may have been attached to the Manitoba Regiment at the time of his death. Many young men from Eastern Prince Edward Island had gone to Nova Scotia to enlist.

The tragedy in his death itself, in his death at 27, and in his death in the war's last days are obvious. Other suffering caused by his death is not so obvious. In 1917, his brother Abram drowned after falling from a vessel in the Northumberland Strait, leaving his widow and two daughters. They were my grandmother and her older sister (who had been blind from birth). The family's understanding has always been (in my life time) that John would have supported them after the war and they would have been spared the poverty that they had faced. In the end, my grandmother and her sister had full, happy lives. This was despite the poverty they faced as children- poverty they overcame but with some price. Specifically, the costs of school for the blind for my great aunt, meant less money for education and medical (dental) care for my grandmother. The math was that simple. These were not life-threatening deficits, but certainly life-shaping.

Save for the effect of a single shell or bullet in the cold November of 1918, I believe John Daley would have helped as he could.

B.

Commonwealth War Graves Commission Link for John Daley:

http://www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=577383

Canadian Department of Veteran's Affairs Link for John Daley:

http://www.vac-acc.gc.ca/remembers/sub.cfm?source=collections/virtualmem/Detail&casualty=577383