George Alfred Newburn:
A soldier of the First World War

Story by Stephen J. Thorne

His name was George Alfred Newburn, a labourer from Victoria who was killed during the Battle of Hill 70 in France on Aug. 15, 1917. He was just 18 years old, although Newburn would have you believe he was 20.

For almost a century, Private Newburn was listed as missing in action. Then one day in July 2017, construction workers uncovered the skeletal remains of five soldiers near rue Léon Droux in the village of Vendin-le-Vieil.

In February, after extensive historical, genealogical, anthropological, archaeological and DNA analysis, the military’s Casualty Identification Review Board confirmed the identity of a single set of remains as those of Newburn.

READ MORE

Sister ships take part in evacuations

Story by Sharon Adams

HMCS St. Laurent and HMCS Restigouche fired Canadian warships’ first shots of the Second World War on June 11, 1940, in the final echoes of the six-week Battle of France, during which more than half a million Allied troops and civilians were evacuated from ports in France, under great menace from the invading German army.

The biggest rescue happened May 26-June 4 at Dunkirk, France. British and French armies were trapped and surrounded during the German panzer drive to the English Channel. A Herculean effort by military and merchant ships, cargo boats and pleasure vessels managed to evacuate a third of a million troops.

But there were more troops, troops that had not yet been snared in the German net. On June 5, German attention turned to them.

READ MORE

June 13, 1916

Troops under command of Major-General Arthur Currie counterattack at Mount Sorrel in Belgium, restoring front lines at a cost of 8,000 Canadians killed, wounded or captured.

READ MORE