Newspaper bearer of sad news for local families 100 years ago

In the five weeks leading up to the Battle of Vimy Ridge, the 100th anniversary of which will be observed on April 9, eight men from Kelowna were killed in northwestern France.

During the historic battle itself, where Canadian troops fought for the first time under their own flag, 17 men from the Okanagan died.

In victory, the losses were staggering, considering Kelowna’s population was only about 2,000 people during the First World War.

For the next few weeks, The Daily Courier is presenting articles about the Kelowna and Okanagan men who, motivated by patriotism and a sense of adventure, left the peace of the valley and never returned.

—— — From page 1 of the Kelowna Record newspaper, March 1, 1917, under the headline Kelowna Boys Amongst the Casualty List:

Since the recent heavy fighting in which it was reported that Canadians from Southern B.C. had been engaged, relatives and friends of our local boys who were known to be over in France have been waiting with deep anxiety to know whether their own dear ones had been numbered with the casualty lists.

Telegrams received yesterday show that those fears have been some measure realized, and that at least two have given up their lives, and several others have been wounded.

To the relatives of those concerned the whole sympathy of the district will go out in their sorrow.

The sad news was brought that George Monford and Fred Whittingham had been killed.

The former was the eldest son of Mr. Geo. Monford, the late road foreman, and was only twenty years of age. He went overseas to England some six months ago with the 172nd, but later volunteered with a draft of the 54th for France, was there attached to the Engineers.

He was a fine, promising young fellow, and as he had grown up

from childhood in the district, he had many friends.

Fred Whittingham was another young fellow of two and twenty, and who went over with the 172nd at he same time. He was the eldest son of three bothers, and his loss is particularly sad for the fact that he was the male support of his widowed mother.

Reported wounded were Dick Rowley of the KLO Bench, with a slight rifle shot wound in the leg; Dan Berard of the Mission, with injuries to the jaw; and Howard Fitzpatrick of Rutland, wounded in the hand.

R. Gray of the Mission has also been wounded.

—— — On the Circumstances of Death Register, First World War, maintained by Library and Archives Canada, there is some basic information about how Pte. George Lorn Monford of Kelowna died. It reads: “Killed in Action. Killed by shell fire during an attack on Vimy Ridge.”

The circumstances of Whittingham’s death are unknown because, as a note on the Library and Archives website says, “Volumes containing names beginning Sip to Z have not survived.”