CAF Story | Sometimes the stars just align
Video / July 26, 2023
Transcript
I am Captain Scott McDowell, I'm the war diaries officer at the Directorate of History and Heritage.
And I'm also the great-great-grandnephew of Corporal Frederick Percival Bousfield, who was killed at Ypres in 1916.
On November 10th, I received an email from an aunt of mine who loves genealogy and does the family tree.
She brings out the binder and has got all the books and has got the photos of everyone generations past, including Percy Bousfield.
This email was sent around to the table for Remembrance Day and had all these wonderful documents and letters from Percy to his parents.
It had letters from his comrades after he was killed, had drawings and sketches that he had made.
I thought, wow, all of this is phenomenal stuff, really great to learn all of this.
Six days later, we're having an all hands meeting at Directorate of History and Heritage.
And casualty identification section said, this year we have identified two unknown soldiers.
And the first one, I couldn't remember the name.
But the second one, and I’ll remember it forever, said, Corporal Frederick Percival Bousfield.
And my jaw just about hit the floor because that is Percy Bousfield, that is my great-great-uncle.
I am really at a loss for words at how … at the odds of it all.
I started at DHH in August.
And, what's that, three months later, oh, by the way, you’re learning all this about history and heritage?
Here is your history and heritage, right here, right now.
Percy Bousfield was born on the 8th of March in 1896 in Cotehill, Cumberland, England.
Percy served with the 43rd Canadian Infantry Battalion, also known as the The Cameron Highlanders of Canada, within the Canadian Expeditionary Force.
He was killed on the 7th of June, 1916 at the Battle of Mont Sorrel.
He was 20 years old.
The way that he was discovered was scholarly research.
Examining the circumstances, possibly the Commonwealth war graves report from the time, to say, you know what, we can determine that, out of all the people killed, it's just Percy in this grave.
It's not easy to find unknown soldiers and we don't find most of them.
But we will try forever, because that’s part of the deal.
When I've been telling my family about this, that was the one that really resonated with a couple of them.
When I was talking to my sister about it and she was saying, oh my goodness, it's incredible that they’re still looking for people a hundred years down the line.
And I said, yeah, that's part of the deal.
You join and you go out there and you don't come back, that's not the end of your story.
That we, as an organization, we celebrate our fallen, we honour the fallen.
Every mess dinner, there’s an empty place for the missing soldier who's not there.
That, it's a huge part of who we are and getting to see that put into practice is very meaningful.
Working at History and Heritage, we're doing it because we care.
That’s been the greatest joy of joining DHH and getting to see everyone, all of these experts, doing their jobs.
It's because they care.
And I mean that when I say it, and I mean that very forcefully.
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