Roy Craig

Roy was responsible for driving wagons of ammo to the front, and injured and dead soldiers to the rear.


Roy Craig was born August 14th 1889 at Gordonsville, New Brunswick. Roy provided for his wife, Ethel May Hanning and their five children, Burns, Basil, Miles, Earl Leroy Craig, and Norman Craig as a farmer in Gordonsville.

He was in the 140th O.S. Battalion CEF Reg. N. 817958. He served as a private. He embarked at Halifax in September 1916 and disembarked at Liverpool October 6th, 1916 arriving on the S.S. Corsican. He was transferred to the 25th battalion at Caesar's Camp Shornecliffe on October 27th, 1916. They arrived in France on October 29th. In January 1917 transferred to 14th Canadian Gunner Corp. and then Dec 1917 transferred to 2nd Battalion Canadian Machine Gun Corps.

Because Roy was a farmer and familiar with teams of horses, he was given a specific job at Passchendaele; Roy was responsible for driving wagons of ammo to the front, and injured and dead soldiers to the rear. This would have been extremely dangerous as at any moment a shell could hit the ammunition wagons. “One day as he used to tell us, he was returning with a wagon load of dead, when an arm came out from the dead and grabbed him, almost giving him a heart attack. He took the wagon instead to an aid station where he had a hard time convincing them someone was alive. The injured man was finally found way underneath the others,” tell Roy’s granddaughter, Patricia Lackey.

Roy saw action at Vimy Ridge, Passchendaele, and Hill 70.

He received his discharge May 17th, 1919 at St. John Much of Roy' erratic behavior at the death of his first wife, which is believed to have stemmed from the daily horrors and dangers he saw during the First World War, which left him unable to cope with the normal problems of everyday life.

After the war, he came home, to be honoured with an easy chair by the people of Centreville and Gordonsville New Brunswick. His wife died of the Spanish Flu, and then he abandoned his children to their different aunts. He went to St. John’s to look for work, and married right away to Myrtle Vail, they had four children: Eleanor, Ronald, Leigh, Clifford. Myrtle Vail died while they were still very young and Roy abandoned the children to an orphanage. While at the orpanage Ronald and Leigh were in danger of drowning, and Eleanor rescued them, but not having the strength to save herself she drowned.

A few years later he married Katherine Millet-Cox who outlived him, they had two children: Roy and Stephen.

Roy Craig passed away on March 10, 1964.

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