The World is a Stage
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Yesterday, 100 years ago, perhaps at the same time of day you are reading this article, Tom’s mates realized he was missing.
They knew he had been wounded in the arm, because he had asked if it was safe to go to the field dressing station alone. It wasn’t. He was advised to wait until the stretcher-bearers brought in another wounded man off the Somme battlefield, and go with them. Tom Davidson didn’t want to wait, he never had been one to waste time, so he set off on his own. Now, no one could find him.
A letter reporting him wounded and missing was sent to his wife Alice, here in Tillsonburg. It had arrived only a couple of days after she had read some of the two letters Tom had sent home, to their four children. Other parts of the letter she would have shared with friends and even had written up in the newspaper as one told how Percy Gothard “had been wounded in the head and around the face: He was buried by shells and had to be dug out.” The second letter told of another Tillsonburg’s soldier Pte. Frank Boyle’s death.
Alice, although terrified of Tom’s fate, would have been hopeful and praying he still alive.
Tom wasn’t a young boy who enlisted to fight for honour and glory. He was 35 years old, with a family, and was a labourer working 60 hours a week on our streets earning $468 in 1911.
Thomas Israel Davidson and Alice Maud Macey, had both been born in 1880 and married in 1901 in Lewisham, England. Three of the four children were born there before they immigrated in 1907. As yet we don’t know why they came to Tillsonburg, although many English families were doing so at the time.
Tom didn’t rush out to enlist either; he waited just over a year after the war started, until September 29th when a recruiting squad came from the London camp to enlist me in the 71st battalion. Fifteen men signed up at that time. He, like so many others, finally understood, that this was not going to be a quick, easy war to win. More and more men were needed. We don’t know whether in Britain or Canada, but Tom had previously been in an active Militia. Alice received a $10 gold coin as a signing bonus from our Town Council.
So Tom left his family and with his battalion returned to England where his parents and siblings still lived. Herbert, his eldest son, was 14 years old. There were no teenagers back then, you were a boy then you became a man. He would be expected to help care for the family while Tom was gone.
Overseas the 71st battalion became replacements for other Canadian battalions and Tom went to the 44th. The War Diaries for the 44th note that on Oct 23rd, “Fine during day but began to rain about 6 pm. The battalion moving up to relieve the 47th Bn in the front line. All specialists sent forward from Transport Base-sending forward Ration Carrying Party of 70 men. These are carrying rations from dump on Courcelette to front line. Four other ranks were wounded on carrying party of last night.”
Oct 24th: “Raining. The Battalion were to have attempted to take the Regina Trench... Owing to weather condition operations were suspended for 24 hours. Lieut F.G. Church was evacuated to O.R.C. suffering from laryngitis - Furnished a ration party of 60 O.R. to carry rations to the front line.”
Oct 25th: "Raining during morning and clearing during afternoon. Battalion attempted to capture portion of Regina Trench under Operation Order No. 9. The operation failed owing to insufficiency of Artillery Barrage. The Battalion suffered heavily.”
Three officers were killed, seven wounded and one evacuated for shell shock. Thirty-seven O.R. were killed, 125 wounded, 13 missing and believed killed, and 13 missing.
Tom, although wounded, lived through the battle but he didn’t make it to the dressing station. No one ever did find Tom. Too many men that fell, disappeared into the mud or too little was left to identify. Others, never identified, were rolled into mass graves in shell holes. Not long after her letter declaring him missing, Alice received the dreaded telegram saying he was presumed dead.
He is not forgotten though. His name is on the Vimy Memorial for the missing and now listed on our own cenotaph.
If anyone knows of the Davidson family, who stayed in Tillsonburg, please contact me at 519-842-9416. A special thank you to Jerry Turner for all the research he did on Tom and our other WWI fallen.