LClp Robert Ashley Smith 10 Canadian Inf d.26/9/16

[Will O'Brien]

As per CWGC

Name: SMITH, ROBERT ASHLEY

Initials: R A

Nationality: Canadian

Rank: Lance Corporal

Regiment: Canadian Infantry (Alberta Regt.)

Unit Text: 10th Bn.

Age: 35

Date of Death: 26/09/1916

Service No: 472100

Additional information: Husband of Evelyn Louise Smith, of "Edale," Rosemont St., Punchbowl, Sydney, Australia.

Casualty Type: Commonwealth War Dead

Cemetery: VIMY MEMORIAL

[Will O'Brien]

& the memorial info

Cemetery: VIMY MEMORIAL

Country: France

Locality: Pas de Calais

Location Information: The Vimy Memorial overlooks the Douai Plain from the highest point of Vimy Ridge, about eight kilometres northeast of Arras on the N17 towards Lens. The memorial is signposted from this road to the left, just before you enter the village of Vimy from the south. The memorial itself is someway inside the memorial park, but again it is well signposted.

Historical Information: On the opening day of the Battle of Arras, 9 April 1917, the four divisions of the Canadian Corps, fighting side by side for the first time, scored a huge tactical victory in the capture of the 60 metre high Vimy Ridge. After the war, the highest point of the ridge was chosen as the site of the great memorial to all Canadians who served their country in battle during the First World War, and particularly to the 60,000 who gave their lives in France. It also bears the names of 11,000 Canadian servicemen who died in France - many of them in the fight for Vimy Ridge - who have no known grave. The memorial was designed by W S Allward.

No. of Identified Casualties: 11167

[Broznitsky]

Robert Smith, another Englishman who enlisted in Canada, into the 65th Battalion in Saskatchewan in May 1915, fell at Thiepval Ridge as a member of 10th Battalion in September 1916.

From Nicholson:

In the 1st Division's left sector, the 2nd Brigade (Brig.-Gen. F.O.W. Loomis) had to

advance over the highest part of the main Thiepval Ridge. It attacked with the 5th Battalion on the right and the 8th (left), each augmented by a company of the 10th Battalion. Despite heavy machine-gun fire from Zollern and Stuff Redoubts and the Mouquet Farm area, and continual shelling by the enemy's artillery, the troops reached both objectives. Neither one, however, could they completely secure. Enemy pockets remained in Zollern Trench, while the left (German right) of Hessian was still in enemy hands. Not until next day did the Canadians clear both trenches to the corps boundary. In an afternoon counterattack on the 27th the enemy again occupied part of Hessian Trench, though not for long.

Question: why was his wife in Australia? Why didn't he enlist into AIF?

[dorrie]

See attached attestaion papers for Robert Ashley Smith

[dorrie]

A see attached attestaion papers 2

[Will O'Brien]

Question: why was his wife in Australia? Why didn't he enlist into AIF?

It would appear that from his Attestation papers that his wife was living in Canada when he joined up..........The address on the CWGC would have been taken from the NOK verification forms sent out by the Graves Registration Commission by which time Robert's wife was obviously in Australia. I know the Charter for the Commission was drawn up in 1917 so I guess NOK verification forms weren't sent out until 1917 at the earliest............As Robert was killed in 1916 perhaps his wife decided to start a new life outside of Canada after he died

[Terry Denham]

Will

FVFs (Final Verification Forms) did not start to be sent out till 1918 and continued through the 1920s.