Private George Lawrence Price

Private George Lawrence Price. Last Commonwealth Soldier Killed in First World War. , Private George Price was born on December 15th 1892 in Kings County, Nova Scotia. As a young man he moved to Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. He enlisted in the 210th Infantry Battalion (Frontiersmen), Canadian Expeditionary Force (C.E.F.) in Moose Jaw on 15 October 1917 and was enrolled at the 1st Saskatchewan Depot on 4 December, 1917 where he completed his basic training. Subsequently he was transferred to the 15th Canadian Reserve Battalion in England, 6 February 1918, and then transferred to the 28th Canadian Infantry Battalion, which was from Saskatchewan, 1 May 1918. , On 8th September 1918 Private Price was "Gassed" in the Canal-Du-Nord area and sent to the 1st Canadian Casualty Collection Station for treatment and subsequently to the 26th General Hospital in Etaples, France. He was discharged and returned to his unit on 26th September 1918. , Private Price was to be the last Commonwealth battle fatality of the First World War. In these last few minutes of the war, at 10:50, just after the 28th had reached the line of the Canal du Centre, Private George L. Price of A Company was shot by a German sniper while carrying out a reconnaissance on the far side of the Canal du Centre. Price, Private Art Goodmurphy, and two others from A Company had crossed the canal and entered the small village of Ville-sur-Haine on the other side to search the house from which a German machine gun had been firing just moments before. The small party of Canadians rushed the house and found the only occupants to be the owner and his family, the Germans having scuttled out the back door just before the Canadians entered the front. The Canadians moved on to the next house where they again found no Germans. As Price and Goodmurphy stepped back into the street, a single shot rang out hitting Price in the chest. Price slumped into Goodmurphy's arms. After he had been dragged back into the house, Price was attended to by the occupants, the Lenoir's and a young Belgian girl, Alice Grotte, a neighbour, who seeing him fall, had risked her life to cross the street to come to his aid. Their help was to no avail and Price died at 10:58 a.m., just two minutes before the "CEASE FIRE". He was the last soldier of the Commonwealth to be killed during the First World War. (Stewart A.G. Mein-Up The Johns (Published by - the Senate of the Royal Regina Rifles) , 256265 Private George Lawrence Price, , 28th Battalion , KIA 10:58, November 11, 1918, Friends of the Forces Fellowship would like to thank Cypress Paving, Walchuck Masonary and Garth Hampson for their contributions and Jones-Parkview Funeral Services for the donation of this plaque..