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In memory of:

Private Alphonse Doucet

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Menin Gate

Military service

Service number: 62262
Age: 36
Rank: Private
Force: Army
Unit/Regiment: Canadian Infantry (Quebec Regiment)
Division: 22nd Bn.
Birth: February 11, 1880 Plessisville, Mégantic
Enlistment: February 27, 1915
Death: September 16, 1916 Courcelette, France

Burial/memorial information

Grave reference: Panel 24 - 26 - 28 - 30
Additional information
Baptized Joseph-Achille-Alphonse Doucet. Son of Achille Doucet and Sara Genest, of Plessisville. Married to Clérinda Morissette in 1899, resident of Ste-Monique-de-Nicolet when he left for overseas; his wife died in March 1916 while he was at the front in Belgium. He stated being born on the 9th when he enlisted. Father of Armand Doucet.

He is registered as being killed by a shell and his body not recovered near St-Éloi, Belgium, while he was supposedly attached to the 1st Canadian Tunnelling Company. He was consequently inscribed on the Menin Gate Memorial in Ypres. However, his file and the Orders Part II, 22nd Battalion, differ and rather indicate that he had been missing in action with the 22nd during the assault and the taking of Courcelette.

Enlisted in the 41st Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, he was transferred to the 22nd Battalion on May 11, 1915. On the 20th, he left for Great Britain, arriving in Plymouth, England, on the 29th. From Folkestone, he left for France on September 15 and arrived in Boulogne, Pas-de-Calais, that same day, only to be killed in action on the 16th in Belgium.

In the Books of Remembrance

Commemorated on:

Page 79 of the First World War Book of Remembrance.
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MENIN GATE (YPRES) MEMORIAL Belgium


The Menin Gate Memorial is situated at the eastern side of the town of Ypres (now Ieper) in the Province of West Flanders, on the road to Menin and Courtrai. It bears the names of 55,000 men who were lost without trace during the defence of the Ypres Salient in the First World War. Designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield and erected by the Imperial (now Commonwealth) War Graves Commission, it consists of a Hall of Memory", 36.6 metres long by 20.1 metres wide. In the centre are broad staircases leading to the ramparts which overlook the moat, and to pillared loggias which run the whole length of the structure. On the inner walls of the Hall, on the side of the staircases and on the walls of the loggias, panels of Portland stone bear the names of the dead, inscribed by regiment and corps. Carved in stone above the central arch are the words:


TO THE ARMIES OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE WHO STOOD HERE FROM 1914 TO 1918 AND TO THOSE OF THEIR DEAD WHO HAVE NO KNOWN GRAVE.

Over the two staircases leading from the main Hall is the inscription:

HERE ARE RECORDED NAMES OF OFFICERS AND MEN WHO FELL IN YPRES SALIENT BUT TO WHOM THE FORTUNE OF WAR DENIED THE KNOWN AND HONOURED BURIAL GIVEN TO THEIR COMRADES IN DEATH.

The dead are remembered to this day in a simple ceremony that takes place every evening at 8:00 p.m. All traffic through the gateway in either direction is halted, and two buglers (on special occasions four) move to the centre of the Hall and sound the Last Post. Two silver trumpets for use in the ceremony are a gift to the Ypres Last Post Committee by an officer of the Royal Canadian Artillery, who served with the 10th Battery, of St. Catharines, Ontario, in Ypres in April 1915."

For more information, visit Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

 

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