Remembering World War I Yarmouth Connections

  Sapper Vance Alton Hemeon Date of Birth: June 3, 1890 Place of Birth: Salem, Yarmouth County, Nova Scotia Place of Enlistment: Medicine Hat, Alberta Date of Enlistment: March 6, 1916 Age at enlistment: 26 Height: 5 Feet 6 Inches Chest: 35 Inches   Religion: Baptist Address at Enlistment: 731 Seventh Street, Medicine Hat Alberta Trade: Merchant Marital Status: Single Regiment: Canadian Engineers Battalion: 4th Battalion, Canadian Railway Troops Company Coy D Regimental Number: 696478   Died: December 12, 1917 (reported missing November 30, 1917; admitted to hospital December 2, 1917 "died of wounds" (Gun shot wounds in chest and left arm) at No.55 Casualty Clearing Station. Age at Death: 27 Cemetery: Tincourt New British Cemetery, France Grave Reference: IV. B. 31. Commemorated on Page 254 of the First World War Book of Remembrance. Additional Inforamtion: Son of Wentworth and Annie B. Hemeon, of Salem, Nova Scotia.

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The villages of Tincourt and Boucly were occupied by British troops in March 1917, during the German Retreat to the Hindenburg Line From the following May until March 1918, Tincourt became a centre for Casualty Clearing Stations. On the 23rd March 1918, the villages were evacuated and they were recovered, in a ruined condition, about the 6th September. From that month to December 1918, Casualty Clearing Stations were again posted to Tincourt. The cemetery was begun in June 1917, and used until September 1919; the few German burials, during their occupation of the village, are in Plot VI, Row A. After the Armistice it was used for the reburial of soldiers found on the battlefield, or buried in small French or German cemeteries.There are now nearly 2,000, 1914- 18 war casualties commemorated in this cemetery. Of these, over 250 are unidentified and special memorials are erected to seven soldiers from the United Kingdom and one from Australia, known or believed to be buried among them. Other special memorials record the names of 21 soldiers from the United Kingdom, two from Canada, one from Australia and one from South Africa, buried in other cemeteries, whose graves were destroyed by shell fire. There are 151 German burials here, 7 being unidentified.

(click to enlarge documents) Attestation Papers (click link to see additional information) http://data2.collectionscanada.gc.ca/cef/4001-5000/4242-22.pdf