SARNIA AND CANADA WAR STATISTICS

 

 

 

For both World War I and World War II numbers above, they are for Canada and Newfoundland combined.  (Newfoundland, though a British Colony, did not join the Confederation of Canada until March of 1949)

 

* Sarnia Casualties numbers are based on the number of names on the City of Sarnia Cenotaph only (does not include others that may have been missed or those from surrounding Lambton County)

 

* *Some sources, including the First World War Book of Remembrance list this total as 66,000+.  This is because several thousand personnel died after the disbandment of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, so includes military personnel who died from August 4, 1914 to April 31, 1922.

 

***In the Service of Canada

Canadians that gave their lives in service to their country, including peacekeeping (eg. Afghanistan) and other foreign military operations, domestic operations and training, since October 1947

(it does not include the Korean War).

 

Note: Sarnia and Canada’s approximate populations at the start of the two World Wars;

1914: Sarnia = 10,900   1914: Canada = 7.8 million       1939: Sarnia = 18,240   1939: Canada = 11.2 million

                                                                       

 

Dulce Et Decorum Est

 

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.

 

 By Wilfred Owen