Lieutenants McDonald & Wylie: CWGC APPEAL DOCUMENTS

[laughton]

More than four (4) years after submission of the initial report on Lt. Donald Wallace McDonald and three (3) years after the report on Lt. James Archibald Wylie, we have submitted our APPEAL DOCUMENT to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. The appeal itself took two (2) years to assemble and submit, with considerable resources allocated by Brig. Gen. Greg Young (ret'd) to the "mining" of additional data from the 15th Battalion (Canadian Infantry) archives at the site of their parent regiment (48th Highlanders of Canada). Greg runs the "15th Battalion Memorial Project". In addition, to respond to the CWGC requirements, we had to account for the location of every unknown Canadian Officer that was lost in the Great War in France. Although a considerable time consuming task, it will reap great benefits on other Canadian cases. We are continuing this exercise with all Canadian Officers in Belgium, as well as with the NCOs and ORs worldwide. I suspect our children will have to finish the task.

 

If anyone else has to assemble and submit an APPEAL DOCUMENT, I hope this process will benefit your work as well. Here are the links we sent to the CWGC on 12 July 2019:

 

• Main CEFSG Report Web Page for all Canadian Report Links:
  http://cefresearch.ca/unknown-reports/
   
• Bookmark Link for Appeal Reports Submitted in 2019:
  http://cefresearch.ca/unknown-reports/#appealdocument
   
• Individual PDF Report Link for the McDonald & Wylie Appeal:
  • http://www.cefresearch.ca/reports/CWGC ID APPEAL Cases 307-1 and 308-1 Lieutenants McDonald and Wylie.pdf
     
• Individual PDF Report Links for the McDonald & Wylie Enhanced Reports:
  • http://www.cefresearch.ca/reports/Lieutenant McDonald St Marys ADS Cemetery Plot 14 Row C Grave 11 - June 2019.pdf
  • http://www.cefresearch.ca/reports/Lieutenant Wylie Loos British Cemetery Plot 6 Row H Grave 2 - June 2019.pdf

 

For those familiar with these cases, or that of Second Lieutenant John Kipling, they are closely related. It was while working on this project, primarily the case of Lt. Wylie, that we discovered the error of the 18th Labour Battalion in the recording of the exhumation locations of many of the men in the Loos British Cemetery. During the process of reviewing all the work of the 18th Labour Company, we came across several other significant errors. One of those has resulted in our submission of a separate report on the mis-identification of another Canadian Lieutenant lost at Hill 70 on August 1917.

 

Fingers crossed & we hope we live long enough to see the headstones replaced!

 

Richard

Edited 18 July , 2019 by laughton
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