It’s dark on Boxing Day when Eric makes his way toward a forward trench to replace other soldiers. A tired soldier passes him by, leaving the muddy trench. The soldier is carrying out a plank of wood that he’s been using as a mat. This is careless. The enemy, entrenched on the other side of no man’s land, sends up a flare that catches the white wood in its glare. Suddenly, the Germans have a target. They turn a machine gun on it.
Eric never knows what hit him. “He never suffered at all as it was instant,” Percy writes the next day to their parents.
Percy doesn’t see his brother killed. He’s told that Eric has been wounded and that he can go see him. He gets there expecting to see his brother alive, but stretcher-bearers have already carried Eric’s body into an underground dugout.
Eric is one of two 18th battalion men killed on Boxing Day. He’s buried Dec. 27 in a little cemetery behind the front lines. “It is a nice place,” Percy assures his parents. “I will look after the grave whilst I am able.”
“Eric was born in Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire, England on March 13, 1896. He enlisted on January 22, 1915 at Berlin, Ontario and joined the 18th Battalion, Canadian Infantry, Western Ontario Regiment. Eric had worked as a woodworker.
Eric was the son of Joseph and Harriet Boothby Carthy of 39 Waterloo Street, Berlin, later of 277 Nelson Street, Kitchener.
He went overseas in April 1915 and to the front on September 16, 1915. Eric was killed in action on December, 26, 1915 at the age of 19. Eric is buried at Ridge Wood Military Cemetery near Ypres, Belgium, grave 1.K.3. He is remembered by the Royal Canadian Legion, Ontario: Branch 50 – Fred Gies, Kitchener – Wall of Remembrance.
Eric is the brother to Percy who also served. Both were killed in action.”
Source: A Book of Remembrance: Members of the Church of St. John the Evangelist, Kitchener, Ontario.
CVWM: Press Clipping – Source: The Globe, Toronto Thursday January 3 1916.CVWM: Press Clipping – Source: The Globe, Toronto Monday January 24 1916.Evening Chronicle 06 Jan 1916, Thu · Page 3.
“Killed in Action” Like so many of the 18th Battalion on that fateful day on the Somme.
Consent form signed by parents and witnessed by another family member. He was 18 years old, 10 months when he volunteered.
History of the 18th Battalion CEF, "The Fighting Eighteenth" 