GUNNER THOMAS EDWARD MILTON CLAYTON CLAYTON
CANADIAN FIELD ARTILLERY
14TH JUNE 1918 AGE 20
BURIED: WAILLY ORCHARD CEMETERY, FRANCE
Some parents are astonishingly magnanimous, as Mrs Julia Clayton has been here. She thanks God that for twenty years her family of two sons and two daughters has been untouched by sorrow. All this changed when her son, Milton Clayton, serving with the 23rd Howitzer Battery, 5th Brigade Canadian Field Artillery, was killed on 14 June 1918. The war cemetery register records that he 'died of accidental injuries'. The military record states:
"The gun on which Gunner Clayton was engaged was firing at the time and he was assisting in the supply of ammunition. Several rounds were fired when a premature occurred directly in front of the muzzle of the gun, several pieces flying back into the gun pit, one striking him in the chest. He was placed on a stretcher, dying while on the way to the dressing station, presumably from hemorrhage."