LANCE CORPORAL BERT TRACEY
CANADIAN MOUNTED RIFLES
4TH DECEMBER 1915 AGE 29
BURIED: BERKS CEMETERY EXTENSION, BELGIUM
On December 4th "General Seely came into the lines and asked for volunteers to raid the barrier [across the Wulverghem-Messines road]. The raiding party was to get prisoners for identification purposes, if possible; find out the reasons for such a barrier; make reconnaissance and return within an hour. ... The raid was to take place behind a screen of an artillery bombardment but unfortunately this drew the enemy's fire in a counter-bombardment and put the opposing troops on the alert. ... Due to the bombardment there were several casualties. Captain Mackay, Privates B. Tracey and R. Sears were killed and four men wounded."
4th Canadian Mounted Rifles 1914-1919
Captain S.G.Benett MC, late Royal Engineers
Published 1926
Bert Tracey's parents lived in Stockport, Cheshire. He enlisted in Toronto on 27 November 1914. These are the only two firm facts I have been able to find out about his background. His mother chose his inscription. It comes from a broadside ballad, which, if it was written by William Vincent Wallace and Edward Fitzball, would have to have been written by 1873 when Fitzball died. The inscription is based on the final three lines. You can listen to the song here on a site called Music From the Works of James Joyce. The words vary on different sites but these are the ones printed on the broadsheet.
Oh let me like a soldier fall
Upon some open plain?
This breast expanding for a ball
To blot out every stain.
Brave manly hearts confer my doom,
That gentler ones may tell;
Howe'er unknown forgot my tomb
He, like a soldier fell.
He, like a soldier fell.
I only ask of that proud race,
That end its blaze in me -
To die the first and not disgrace
Its ancient chivalry.
Though o'er my grave no banner waves,
Nor trumpets swell;
Enough, they murmur at my tomb,
He, like a soldier fell,
He, like a soldier fell.