PRIVATE JAMES WINNING CHAPMAN
CANADIAN MACHINE GUN CORPS
9TH APRIL 1917 AGE 26
BURIED: LA CHAUDIERE MILITARY CEMETERY, VIMY, FRANCE
Alas! what links of love that morn
Has War's rude hand asunder torn!
For ne'er was field so sternly fought,
And ne'er was conquest dearer bought.
Here piled in common slaughter sleep
Those whom affection long shall weep:
Here rests the sire, that ne'er shall strain
His orphans to his heart again;
The son, whom, on his native shore,
The parent's voice shall bless no more;
The bridegroom, who has hardly press'd
His blushing consort to his breast;
The husband, whom through many a year
Long love and mutual faith endear.
Thou canst not name one tender tie,
But here dissolved its relics lie!
Stanza XX The Field of Waterloo
Sir Walter Scott 1815
As with the field of Waterloo on 18 June 1815 so with Vimy Ridge, on 9 April 1917; the bodies of fathers, sons, husbands and new bridegrooms lay scattered everywhere, the cause of heartbreak in homes across the world. The War Graves Commission site records that 6,851 men died in France on 9 April 1917, the first day of the Second Battle of Arras, of which Vimy Ridge was a part. British and Prussian casualties (allies in 1815) on 18 June 1815 were in the region of 42,000. I haven't been able to discover how many of these were dead.
Private Chapman was an undertaker from Paris, Ontario. Born in Glasgow, he and his family emigrated to Canada before the 1911 census. He served with the 8th Company Canadian Machine Gun Corps and was killed in action on 9 April 1917, his body found in a shall hole four days after the battle with three other members of his gun crew. The nature and extent of the injuries indicated that they had all been hit by a shell.