Bartleman, Scott: Service no. 730043

Source: Remembering the Great War by the WR Record

Find-A-Grave: When Private Scott Bartleman was born on 24 January 1884, in Banchory, Kincardineshire, Scotland, United Kingdom, his father, James Bartleman, was 30 and his mother, Jane Dunn, was 36. He immigrated to Canada in 1913. He registered for military service in 1915. In 1915, at the age of 31, his occupation is listed as chauffeur in Galt, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. He died on 16 August 1917, in Loos-en-Gohelle, Pas-de-Calais, Hauts-de-France, France, at the age of 33, and was buried in Dud Corner Cemetery, Loos-en-Gohelle, Pas-de-Calais, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France.

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Galt chauffeur Scott Bartleman, 33, was leading his men over no man’s land on the first day of battle when a German bullet tore into his stomach. He died in the night a few hours later. That same day, his brother was wounded in the shoulder by shrapnel and survived.

Bartleman was a poetic writer who contributed theatre reviews and commentary to the local newspaper. Before he was killed, he wrote home about heavy fighting, intimating that he might not see Canada again. He sent back home for safekeeping a gift he’d received before he departed for the Western Front. The newspaper speculated he “had a premonition that he would meet his death.”
Bartleman pondered God’s plan six weeks before fighting and dying at Hill 70. In a moment of peace, he wrote home to reveal how the astonishing beauty of the French countryside exhilarated him, making him feel of small import “when contrasted with such evidence of the existence of a supreme being so all powerful and wonderful.”

Outhit, J. (2017). Poet soldier foresaw his death at battle that was ‘worse than Vimy’ | TheRecord.com. TheRecord.com. Retrieved 15 August 2017, from https://www.therecord.com/news-story/7502417-poet-soldier-foresaw-his-death-at-battle-that-was-worse-than-vimy-/