Patrick Curtin
Patrick Curtin was born 28 November 1888 in Ennismore, ON to George and Mary Ann Curtin of Ennismore ON, and was the oldest son of 5 children (2 boys, 3 girls). His older sister, Emma, was listed as his next of kin on his attestation papers, after the death of his mother in 1897 and his father in 1909, both of tuberculosis. He came from a farming family, growing up next door to his uncle Timothy and his family, who were also listed as farmers in Ennismore.
In 1912, Patrick moved to Magrath, AB and signed an application to establish a homestead in that community, located about 30 kms south of Lethbridge AB. It was from here that he would travel the 230 kms to Calgary to enlist with the 56th Battalion on 15 November 1915, before being transferred to the 50th Battalion upon arrival in England in May 1916.
In October 1916, the 50th Battalion was engaged in the Battle of the Somme, and located around Tara Hill Camp, which was a hill west of Albert on the Bapaume Road. The 102nd Battalion, who was also engaged in this area at the time, has a very detailed description of the scenes around Tara Hill at this time:
"It was a busy scene on which the men looked down from their camp on the top of Tara Hill. The Albert-Bapaume Road was literally alive by day and night with a never-ending stream of vehicles of all kinds travelling east or west; lorries ladened with ammunition going east, or crowded with weary soldiers coming west, ambulances, ration waggons, motor-cycles, all the traffic of an army actively engaged poured ceaselessly back and forth along this main highway which miraculously escaped complete destruction by the enemy's artillery. About four miles east of Albert the road forks into a "'Y", here at the apex once stood the village of La Boisselle of which one stone did not remain upon another; close by were, two enormous craters worthy of notice. The left fork carried on past Pozières, a mere geographical expression of which no trace remained, to the Sunken Road and thence to the German positions astride Bapaume; at the Sunken Road, Tenth Street afforded a safe passage-way to the ill-omened but well-named Death Valley, on the eastern side of which lay the front line. The right fork at La Boisselle ran up to Contelmaison, of which but a few cellar stones remained, and here a track diverged to Sausage Valley past the Chalk Pits which we were to know so well before we left the Somme. From Sausage Valley, a trail followed later by a light railway, ran across the ghastly Plain of Courcelette, reeking with the debris, human and otherwise of battle. Dante could have found no finer inspiration for his illustrations of the "Inferno' than the scene presented on a wet November evening by the Plain of Courcelette. The front line at this time was situated between Death Valley and Regina Trench."
The 50th Battalion war diary provides little detail about the what was happening during this period, but does note that the Battalion came out of the front line on 23 Oct and pulled back to Tara Hill Camp. There they counted 1 soldier KIA and 4 wounded, 1 of which was Patrick. He would die of shrapnel wounds on 1 November 1916 at OC No 1 Canadian General Hospital in Etaples, France. In May 1918, this hospital would be destroyed in a German bombing raid, killing three Canadian nursing sisters who would be declared the first Canadian nurses to be killed in action.
Patrick Curtin is buried in Etaples Military Cemetery in Pas de Calais, France. He was 27 years old.
