Story of one of the soldiers whose name is inscribed on the Vimy Memorial

Thomas Bullock was born on March 29th, 1879 in Manchester, England. In 1914, he was married and lived in the neighborhood  of Pointe St-Charles in Montréal, where he was employed as an ironworker. He enlisted on March 19th, 1915, and joined the 24th Canadian battalion.

On September 15th, 1916, his battalion was engaged in the battle of Flers-Courcelette, in the Somme, as a Divisional Reserve of the 2nd Canadian Division.

On the 17th, he was reported as wounded by exploding shells. When the battle ended, his body was still not found.  At the end of 1916, he was definitively reported as Killed In Action.

His widow wrote to the Imperial War Graves Commission in 1928, to get some information on the search for her husband’s remains. In the letter presented above, we discover the research work concerning the bodies found after the war. They were listed and reburied in burial grounds managed by the Commission.

Bullock’s body not having been found, his widow was told that his name would be commemorated on the Vimy Memorial which was then under construction.

Picture credits : https://stampauctionnetwork.com/

Translated by Jacques Paltani