Canadian Virtual War Memorial

Document – The CWGC COG-BR for Hooge Crater Cemetery reports that Private Archibald Somers #73187 was exhumed from the area to the northwest of Hooge Belgium at Map 28 Sector 28.I.18.9.75.99 in September 1919. He was found with Lance Sergeant Guy Keating #73372. The ICRC documents state that Keating drowned in a SAP near Hooge that was constructed to gain access to the enemy front lines. The ICRC document for Somers has no details. The Circumstance of Death for Keating (Somer's was lost) states that the enemy had exploded a mine at that time and then took the ground. Keating and Somers may have been trapped in their SAP when the mine exploded and were thus found together.

Document – ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) reports that Private Archibald Somers was missing but it has no additional details. We know from the files of his colleague, Lance Sergeant Guy Keating, that they were in a SAP constructed to gain access to the German front lines. The two bodies were found together in September 1919 and are buried together in Plot 18 Row J Grave 9 at the Hooge Crater Cemetery. Note the grave site photo shows two headstones, so it would have been a "Trench Burial".

Photo of ARCHIBALD SOMERS – Submitted for the project Operation Picture Me

Entrance

Cemetery

Grave Marker

Photo of Archibald Somers – In memory of the men from the 28th Battalion CEF who went to war and did not return. Submitted for the project, Operation: Picture Me