Cpl. William Henry Gaines, 1st Battalion, CEF

[Geoff A Arnold]

Hello , I stumbled across an old posting from 16 June 2007 while reasearching my Great uncle ,cpl William Henry gains 7000 1bn west Ontario reg of the Canadian Infantry.

The topic was started by Will O Brian and was about Pte John Burns . User name Canada wwi made and entry about his great uncle and stated that his great uncle was a bomb thrower during the second battle of Ypres on Apr 23 1915 and his partner was William Henry Gains 7000 , you could imagine my surprise to read this. As my family has very little information other than his memorial listings I would be very interested in hearing if Canada wwi or anyone has any more information on him . I am only new to this site and have not got the privilege to contact members directly and would apreciate if any user that knows of canadawwi would you please pass my details on to them. My father says that he has some letters from Gains but can't remember what is in them or where they are , he is 85 and not with good memory so I am helping him look for them. Any Information that anyone can provide would be greatly appreciated.

Regards Geoff Arnold.

[rksimpson]

Hi Geoff

It looks like he is no longer on here, I tried a search and nothing came up.

I am not very knowledgable on Canadian records, but try googling for Canadain WW1 records and see what comes up

regards

Robert

[David B]

Geoff,

Follow the link below which should get you to the Canadian mil record site. I believe that you can only get the attestation doco, other records are not on line.

http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/databases/cef/001042-100.01-e.php

David

[Geoff A Arnold]

Thanks ,I'll give those sites a go.

Geoff.

[Canadawwi]

Hi!

I saw your post yesterday and am pleased to connect. Pte. Goldwin M. Pirie was my great uncle and he was a friend of William Henry Gaines. At the 2nd battle of Ypres they were together advancing as bomb throwing partners. My uncle fell wounded, and Gaines made it through that day alive. He was asked later what had happened to his partner and he thought he had died as he had been hit badly. He lay out on the battlefield for about 4 days until he was picked up and sent on to Boulogne for treatment. He died two months later in England at Netley (Royal Victoria) hospital.

I've transcribed some reports written by my great uncle when he was training with the 1st Battalion at Valcartier Camp in Quebec in 1914. Gaines was part of a group of friends connected to the town of Dundas Ontario. My uncle sent back humorous reports on their activities at Valcartier back to his local paper for publication. He wrote a poem about the Dundas men, and Gaines as his friend was mentioned. Here's a link to the transcription on the Canadian Great War Project. You can also click on the links within the transcription to see more about all the soldiers in the group that were mentioned. I've provided a brief story on each man in the group. For example, for Gaines I wrote:

Gaines – William Henry Gaines, #7000. Gaines was born in England in 1892. His September 1914 attestation gave a Hamilton Ontario address. Unmarried, he listed his occupation on his attestation as machinist. He had apprenticed as a mechanic at Bertram’s Engine Works and afterwards worked at Westinghouse. He had been in Cleveland, Ohio when the war broke out, but came home to Dundas to enlist. He had served in the 77th Wentworth Regiment for 5 years prior to enlistment. Gaines had joined the bomb-throwing section with Goldwin Pirie and they had taken a bomb-throwing course together. J. Woodville Cowper’s May 9th letter to the Dundas Star indicated that Gaines was with Goldwin Pirie on the battlefield in the charge. Pirie was wounded and Gaines thought he had been killed (Dundas Star “With the Gun Section / Woodville Cowper Describes Events Since the Battle”, May 27th issue). Gaines was killed in the battle of Givenchy on June 15th, 1915. His body was not found. He is remembered on the Vimy Memorial.

What I have been doing is creating a book about my great uncle's story and I have been following up on everything surrounding his experiences during the war. Gaines is part of the story. It is still a "work in progress". The information about Gaines came through letters from soldiers published in the Dundas Star and the Hamilton Spectator (microfilm at the Hamilton Public Library).

Unfortunately there is no living member of the family who knew him as he died in 1915. I have mostly relied upon other sources.

Regards, Marika

[Geoff A Arnold]

Hi Marika,

Thank you so much for the information that you have provided and would be extremely grateful if you could keep me in touch in the future if any more information comes to light. As I mentioned my farther says he has letters so I will step up the effort in trying to find them so I can share them with you. My father will be so happy when I pass this on.I am also very interested in the book you are creating

Feel free to contact me at garnold@helires.com.au Again many thanks .

Regards ,Geoff .

[Canadawwi]

That's excellent. I hope you can find the letters as I'm certain there will be some very helpful information in there. I feel certain that my great uncle would have sent home a number of letters, but they are likely lost or destroyed. In 1915 both his parents were not living, so he probably sent letters to his sister in Toronto, or to relatives in Dundas. The letters he sent to the local newspaper (Dundas Star) were published, but they only cover Valcartier training camp in Canada. However, there is alway hope of items turning up later. Once you begin asking around and making your interest known (via internet) things could still turn up.

Only a few years ago I found at home the 1st Battalion group portrait (H Company) taken at Salisbury Plain in a Christmas card that he must have mailed home. The group photo was printed inside the card for the soldiers to send home from the Salisbury Plain training camp. It was in a stack of 1920s Christmas cards that had been saved in the family correspondence - so it is alway possible for things to turn up many years later. Here's a link to the image. Gaines followed the same path to the battlefield as my great uncle did - first to Valcartier Camp in Quebec (Canada) for training, and then on to Salisbury Plain in England for further training. If you get the file you can find out if your great uncle was also in H company, and therefore he would be somewhere in this photograph. Their service numbers are not so far apart - 7000 & 7076.

A few years back I uploaded a copy of the Remembrance Day memorial service program that was held at the Dundas Cenotaph to Gaines' name on the Canadian Virtual Memorial - you can look at it in the photo collection - here.

There is a web forum specializing in Canadian Expeditionary Force research - CEF Forum. You may want to join it and post your request. Fellow members may be able to help provide further information on the battle he died in, and other information. Link to CEF Forum.

I noted on Gaines' attestation that he spent five years with the 77th Regiment prior to the war. This was a local militia unit that included men from Dundas. My research includes images of the 77th Regiment. The armouries building they used in Dundas is still there. I also have good photos of the Dundas War Memorial that includes Gaines' name on the plaque. I will be uploading these to all the names on the C.V.M. in the future.

I've utilized the Dundas Star issues (on microfilm in Hamilton) for my research as they published numerous soldier letters from local men as the official war news did not provide much info on the activities of local units, and nothing on local men. I pulled most of them from the newspaper from August 1914 to mid 1915 for my research, so if Gaines was mentioned it would be incorporated into the research I've already finished.

You can also read the original 1st Battalion C.E.F. War Diaries which are all scanned and online. This will give you the day to day activities and a better picture of what your uncle went through. This link includes the month of June 1915 where you can read about the battle he was killed at (15 June 1915). 1st Battalion War Diaries

I've put the a brief summary or highlights from my research onto an online blog - you can read it here - Pte. G. M. Pirie - story.

Here's a bit of what I pulled together that appears on this blog:

Accounts that appeared in the local Dundas and Hamilton newspapers included information transcribed from letters sent home by men who had played a part in this counterattack. These accounts led to an early rumour that Pte. Pirie had been killed in action. The Dundas Star newspaper reprinted the letter home from a survivor of the assault. Pte. Burgess recalled: " I saw poor Pte. Pirie hit by a shell and killed". The newspaper published accounts by Burgess and other correspondents. These letters described a relentless and terrifying advance in the early morning hours of April 23rd as the men marched forward in the face of enemy fire. Roll call the following day saw only 350 of 1,000 men in the 1st and 4th battalions. Dundas stretcher bearer Burns Rayner, 4th Battalion, wrote that during that charge they lost 4 of 16 stretcher bearers, and were lacking stretchers and had to resort to carrying the wounded men on their backs.

Rayner also reported that he had passed Pte. Pirie on the battlefield as he had thought he was dead. Days later, the Star published the letter of Woodville Cowper, 1st Battalion, No. 7024, who had discovered that Pte. Pirie was in fact alive. His May 9th letter to his relatives in Dundas was published in the Star, in part: "It was reported G. Pirie was killed or missing, but George Inksater of Paris, sent me word yesterday that he bound him up in a hospital. Gaines was with Pirie, and left him for dead. Rayner would swear he saw him dead, but we are all rejoicing to hear that he is still alive. There are a lot of mistakes made, as I helped to bury fellows whom it was impossible to identify."

I will be in touch via email regarding sending you the files of my research.

[Geoff A Arnold]

Again Many thanks for your work and the Information you have provided ,we haven't found the letters yet but we did find his service medal so the letters may not be to far away , I'll keep looking and let you know if we find them.

Again many thanks ,Geoff.

[Canadawwi]

I am attaching one page (draft only) of the work I have been doing on my great uncle and his experience with the 1st Battalion CEF. The reference to the "77th men" actually means the former 77th Wentworth Regiment men who were now in the 1st Battalion C.E.F. I will try to email you one full chapter which may be of interest.

P.S. It would probably be very helpful to rename this thread as "Cpl. William Henry Gaines, 1st Battalion, CEF". That way anybody who has an interest in CEF research will be more likely to look at it and provide input.