[Newsbot]

Title: George Lawrence Price was last Canadian soldier killed in First World War
Category: History
Posted By: Hyack
Date: 2014-11-08 17:33:23
Canadian

[martin14]

[Hyack]

The true reasons for the actions of Nov 11 are really sad, the desire by some generals to end the war basically where it started....

[Hyack]

Who was the last Canadian to die in the First World War?

$1:

Early morning on the last day of the First World War thousands of battle-worn shock troops from the Third Canadian Division lay just outside Mons, Belgium.

Mons was a prize for British commanders as the site where German forces first engaged the British and forced them back into France. It was where the war started for Britain and where they wanted it to end.

Canadian commanders from brigade level up knew an armistice had been signed and the war would end in several hours. Regardless, some officers decided to push their men into Mons, and at around 3 a.m. on Nov. 11, 1918, the Canadians moved into the German-occupied town.

That decision became a scandal culminating in a 1927 libel trial that pitted the former commander of the Canadian Corps, Sir Arthur Currie of Victoria, B.C., against a small Ontario newspaper. The former commander won the libel action against the newspaper for criticizing the battle decision as an act of vanity and murder.

Going into the trial Currie said no Canadian soldier died in combat on the last day of the war. Eventually, he conceded that one man had died – Private George Lawrence Price – a Lewis-gun toting patrol leader who was shot just before 11 a.m.

During the trial there was evidence entered, but not accepted because it was hearsay, that several Canadians died in combat on Nov. 11.

Especially compelling was a letter from a battalion chaplain to the parents of Private Frederick William Joyce, saying how sorry he was that their son had died on the last day of the war. Court also heard direct testimony from Corporal Joseph Smith, a friend of Joyce, who explained he saw Joyce unwounded at 3: 30 a.m. He saw him later that day, alive, but riddled with bullets. “He was dying, the man was sinking fast you might say,” Cpl. Smith said.

The Great War

[Thanos]

A waste of life at the end of the most miserable waste of life that ever occurred.

[Jabberwalker]

He was killed by a really mean spirited bastard of a sniper who would have known full well that the war was about to end in a couple of minutes. What an evil thing to do. That son-of-a-bitch was probably a Nazi ten years later.

May that murderer rot in hell for eternity.

[sandorski]

Jabberwalker Jabberwalker:

He was killed by a really mean spirited bastard of a sniper who would have known full well that the war was about to end in a couple of minutes. What an evil thing to do. That son-of-a-bitch was probably a Nazi ten years later.

May that murderer rot in hell for eternity.

Although this death was tragic, I don't think vilifying the Sniper serves any purpose. They both were there to serve a purpose and that purpose was vile.

[Jabberwalker]

The sniper squeezed off a round that was specifically aimed at Price, knowing full well that he was going to kill him, knowing full well that the war was going to end in a couple of minutes. It was a vengeful act of murder and barbarity, not an act of war.

Look what those same vengeful monsters did two decades later. Your 21st century moral relativism wouldn't have got much traction in an overcrowded hut in Bergen-Belsen.

[Hyack]

From "the Last Hours"....

$1:

It is not entirely clear why the patrol would cross the canal just before the official cease fire. Perhaps to see if the houses on the other side would make good billets or to see what the Germans were doing. It is recorded that a German machine gun had fired upon Price as he approached the bridge that crossed the canal(3) and they went to search the house from which the firing came.(1) The patrol rushed the house, but found only the owner and his family.(1) The Germans had slipped out the back door just before the Canadians came in the front.(1)

The Canadians moved to the next and again found it occupied,(3) but no Germans.(1) The occupant of the house told Price to be careful. The account of his death in the Mons City Museum states: 'Despite this advice, Price went out to attack the enemy with his Lewis machine gun, but he was mortally wounded by a bullet in the region of the heart.

From the account it would appear Price was on the attack with a Lewis machine gun, it's not as if he was just standing there.

I agree it was a tragic loss so near the end, but really I blame the British high command for their insistence on the retaking of Mons before the 11:00am ceasefire.

The Last Hours

[Jabberwalker]

in context ... a group of Canadian soldiers was fired upon by fleeing Germans and therefore they pursued them, armed.

On November 11, Pte Price was part of an advance to take the small village of Havré. After a crossing of the Canal du Centre into the town of Ville-sur-Haine under German machine gun fire, Price and his patrol moved toward a row of houses intent on pursuing the machine gunner who had harassed their crossing of the canal. The patrol had entered the house from which they had thought the shooting had come, but found the Germans had exited through the back door as they entered the front. They then pursued into the house next door and again found it empty. George Price was fatally shot in the chest by a German sniper as he stepped out of the house into the street, against contrary advice from a house occupant, at 10:58 a.m., November 11, 1918. He died just 2 minutes before the armistice ceasefire, that ended the war, came into effect at 11 a.m

[Thanos]

Hyack Hyack:

From the account it would appear Price was on the attack with a Lewis machine gun, it's not as if he was just standing there.

I agree it was a tragic loss so near the end, but really I blame the British high command for their insistence on the retaking of Mons before the 11:00am ceasefire.

Along with another million or so deaths directly attributable to the decisions of those swagger-stick toting upper-class twits. Turned out to be better at killing mass numbers of their own men than the Germans were.

[Jabberwalker]

Here is a similar incident concerning Canadian servicemen. HMCS Esquimalt was ambushed, torpedoed just outside of Halifax but "around the corner" where it was undetected. She was a Bangor class minesweeper and she went down like a brick, without a mayday or any warning. 44 men died, mostly of hypothermia.

It was a cheap shot taken on April 16 1945 ... exactly three weeks before the German surrender. The U-boat and their crew were prepared to give up ... they did just that in the end. They clearly know that the war was over, they weren't being hunted by Esquimalt and that they were going to surrender their boat but apparently they couldn't pass up the opportunity to kill a bunch of people ... for the Fatherland, of course. Mean spirited was exactly what that was. All they had to do was chill and wait for the honourable opportunity to surrender. Note U-190 safe and sound in St. John's harbour after surrender. You can bet that they were treated extremely well as POWs in Canada.

[Hyack]

Jabberwalker Jabberwalker:

It was a cheap shot taken on April 16 1945 ... exactly three weeks before the German surrender. The U-boat and their crew were prepared to give up

link please.....

[Jabberwalker]

Hyack Hyack:

Jabberwalker Jabberwalker:

It was a cheap shot taken on April 16 1945 ... exactly three weeks before the German surrender. The U-boat and their crew were prepared to give up

link please.....

Try this one and tell me what you think of it.


http://www.uboatarchive.net/U-190INT.htm

[Jabberwalker]

This is a really interesting account of that action by the U-boat skipper in his own voice.
http://www.thememoryproject.com/stories ... irschmann/