Sometimes the confusion of war led to heartbreak on the homefront. So it was for the family of James Mainwaring, which mourned his loss after the cart he was driving was blown up by a German shell.

Back in St. Lambert, Quebec, the entire town came out for his funeral and memorial. Mainwaring had lied about his age to enlist with the Royal Canadian Horse Artillery on May 25, 1917. He was only 17 at the time—too young to die so soon.

A few months later, though, his brother Joseph was walking through London, England, when he got the shock of his life. “Joe saw (James) on furlough in a London Train Station and couldn't believe his eyes,” says James’ granddaughter. “There was then a huge celebration back in Canada because he was found to be alive.”

It turned out James had switched places with another driver shortly before the deadly shelling.

Mainwaring studied business after the war, and eventually settled in Bathurst, New Brunswick, where he worked for Bathurst Pulp and Paper. He married Lillian Mary Nixon in 1938, and the couple had three children. A lifelong Montreal Canadiens fan, Mainwaring died in 1981.

Do you have an ancestor who served in the Great War? Submit their story and it could be included on this Great War Album website.