Canadian Virtual War Memorial

Circumstances of death registers – Source: Library and Archives Canada. CIRCUMSTANCES OF DEATH REGISTERS, FIRST WORLD WAR Surnames: Dack to Dabate. Microform Sequence 26; Volume Number 31829_B016735. Reference RG150, 1992-93/314, 170. Page 697 of 1140. His initial grave was located ½ mile North of Courcelette, 6 miles North East of Albert. After the Armistice, his body and those of the other soldiers buried in the battlefields of Courcelette, Grandcourt and Miraumont, most killed in the period from October 1916 to February 1917, were exhumed and re-interred in REGINA TRENCH CEMETERY.

Memorial – Remembering brothers lost … Brothers In Arms Memorial, Zonnebeke, BE … photo courtesy of Marg Liessens … May 2022

Photo of Robert Davidson – Bobby was killed in action on October 16, 1916 during the attack on the German-fortified Regina Trench. The Canadian Corps moved from the Ypres Salient (where Bobby's brother Nelson died) to the Somme River region at the beginning of September 1916. The village of Courcelette, France, was taken with the aid of a new engine of war, the armoured tank. The Canadian objective was the Regina Trench. The battles were fought in knee-deep mud and constant rain. When this trench and Desire Trench were taken by November 18, the Allies had suffered 600, 000 casualties in 2 1/2 months and moved forward only 10 km. Lucinda Burrows Davidson, was a sister to Nels and Bobby's mother, Martha, and both lived on farms in Boulton Municipality near Cracknell Siding near Russell, Manitoba. A number of years after the war ended, Gramma had a visit from a fellow who said he had been in the same Corps as Bobby. He had intended going to find Bobby's mother, Martha, but got the wrong farm. He told Gramma that Bobby had been 'gut shot' during one of the advances, and lay all night in 'No Man's Land". The medics couldn't get to him and he called and called for hours for them to help him. Sometime in the night he began crying and calling for his mother. In the morning when they got to him he was dead. Gramma said, "This is what that man had come all this way to tell my sister." She said her sister had nearly gone mad when she lost her two sons, Nels and Bobby, within 4 months of each other, and it would have killed her to have heard this. And Gramma said, 'I wish to God he had never ever come here and told me.' Bobby was engaged to be married when he went overseas. His fiancé never married and died about 1990.

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