Private Nathanael Earl Kern | Soldiers | Great War

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No.1 Canadian War Graves Detachment

Private Nathanael Earl Kern likely the last casualty and member of the CEF buried in France during the Great War. Son of Cyrus and Emily Walker Kern, of Brant Co., Ontario.

OP-0347 Comrades. The verso of this painting has been painted blue, This is item 177 in the Hamilton inventory. MIKAN No 2836026

Burying the Fallen

The British Empire chose to bury its battlefield dead from the Great War near the sites where they had fallen, and not to repatriate remains to their home countries, as many grieving families and politicians had demanded. After battles, special grave detachments attempted to collect the unburied dead for proper burial, and to disinter remains from temporary graves for proper reburial elsewhere.

Loos British Cemetery Extension. Extensive research by CWGC teams confirms that potentially hundreds of soldiers who have remained missing since the Great War may be affected by infrastructure works in the region around Loos-en-Gohelle, including a major canal construction project. Up to 200 Canadian remains expected to be recovered.

After the Armistice, this process began in earnest with the vastly expanded Imperial War Graves Commission (IWGC) moving remains into newly established imperial military cemeteries. The process involved tens of thousands of burials and took many years. It still continues on a smaller scale as agricultural or construction work across old battlefields regularly uncovers additional human remains.

Mary Riter Hamilton. OP-0323 Loos from the Crater, Hill 70, France. MIKAN No 2873611

Enlistment of Private Nathanael Earl Kern

Pte Kern 3232399 signed up late, 26 February 1918 at Toronto with 1st C.O.R. Aged 25, standing 5′ 11″ tall, with medium complexion, brown eyes and hair.

England

Pte Kern arrived in England on 15 August 1918 aboard SS BELLEROPHON (13,000 tons – a cargo steamer of the Blue Funnel Line).

Private Nathanael Earl Kern — SS BELLEROPHON

Kern treated at No. 11 Canadian General Hospital, Moore Barracks during September 1918 (mild scabietic rash on ankles).

France

Private Nathanael Earl Kern arrived in France with No. 1 Canadian War Graves detachment on 18 May 1919.

No. 1 Company, Canadian War Graves Detachment

No. 1 Company, Canadian War Graves Detachment formed at Etaples on 18 May 1919 with 10 Officers and 450 Other Ranks. The Company divided into one HQ platoon and four working Platoons, with each working party under command of two Officers.

Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) gardeners tending the graves of the war dead at Etaples. The wooden crosses would later be replaced by white headstones.

Bully-Grenay

The detachment entrained for Bully-Grenay on 24 May 1919, arriving at 19h00. Camp site close to the station with tents pitched for the whole company. Water facilities bad.

On 27 May 1918, special orders printed regarding the care to be taken with Unexploded Ammunition found in the devastated areas. The following day, Pte H T Miller 2355758 and Pte E MacMillan 3323615 accidentally injured through a Lorry passing over a Mills grenade which was half-buried. Again, on 21 May 1918, the men warned regarding the Unexploded Ammunitions.

Death of Private Wilfred Acey Nickerson

On 4 June 1919, while walking towards Roclincourt, Pte Wilfred Acey Nickerson 318176 picked up the nose cap of a shell, and proceeded to open it causing an explosion which killed him almost immediately.

Private W A Nickerson, 20 April 2019. CEFRG.ca

Death of Pte Nathanael Earl Kern

On 12 June 1919, Private Nathanael Earl Kern accidentally killed in explosion of a gas cylinder. He died from phosgene gas exposure at No. 15 CCS.

Houchin British Cemetery

The cemetery opened in March 1918 when the 6th Casualty Clearing Station came to Houchin. From April to September the German advance made Houchin unsafe for hospitals, and the cemetery used by the 55th (West Lancashire) Division. In September 1918, the 6th Casualty Clearing Station returned to Houchin and joined by the 15th CCS in October.

Houchin British Cemetery contains 700 Commonwealth burials of the Great War and two from the Second World War, along with 39 German and one Belgian war graves. The cemetery designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens.

SADLY MISSED BY HIS LOVED ONES

Houchin a village situated between Barlin and Bethune, about 5 kilometres south of Bethune in the Pas-de-Calais. HOUCHIN BRITISH CEMETERY found in open farmland on the south-west side of Houchin village.

Private Nathanael Earl Kern in the Great War