Unknown First World War soldier identified as Manitoban who died in Battle of Passchendaele

An unknown First World War soldier buried in a grave in Belgium has been identified as a Manitoban from a village that no longer exists.

The Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces on Wednesday announced that Cpl. William Benjamin Cunningham is the soldier who has been buried in Tyne Cot Cemetery in Ypres, Belgium, since 1920, three years after he was killed on the battlefield.

Cunningham was 21 when he died Oct. 27, 1917, during one of the deadliest assaults of the First World War — the Third Battle of Ypres, also referred to as the Battle of Passchendaele, according to a news release from the department.

His identity was confirmed through historical research conducted using archival sources, including war diaries, service records, casualty registers, grave exhumation and concentration reports.

The Canadian Armed Forces has identified his family of the identification and is "providing them with ongoing support," the release states.

"A headstone rededication ceremony will take place at the earliest opportunity at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission's Tyne Cot Cemetery."

Cunningham was born on Dec. 30, 1895, near Hayfield, which was a small farming village in southwestern Manitoba, about 15 kilometres from Brandon.

He worked as a clerk in Brandon and served in the 99th Manitoba Rangers militia unit before enlisting with the 181st Overseas Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force. Cunningham arrived in England in April 1917 to train with the 18th Reserve Battalion and then became part of the 44th Canadian Infantry Battalion (now the Royal Winnipeg Rifles) in France in August 1917.

He was promoted to the rank of corporal the following month.

Killed during intense shelling

The Battle of Passchendaele began July 31, 1917. On the morning of Oct. 26, 1917, the 10th Infantry Brigade of the 4th Canadian Division (of which Cunningham's battalion was a part), was attacked along the eastern ridge.

The 44th Battalion fought through intense machine gun fire, gas, and shellfire to successfully take and hold a destroyed forest, Decline Copse, the Department of National Defence's statement said.

In just three days of fighting, 45 men of the 44th Battalion were killed. Of those, 29 were declared missing with no known grave.

Cunningham was killed during intense shelling of a forward outpost past the Canadians' front lines.

For unknown reasons, his remains were not identified.

The Battle of Passchendaele was a muddy massacre underscored by unimaginable hardships.

Three years of fighting in Ypres had destroyed drainage systems in the region, while millions of artillery shells had churned the ground into mud, according to a government of Canada website. When the autumn rains arrived in 1917, the battlefields became a sea of muck.

When the Passchendaele fighting ended on Nov. 6, 1917, it was declared an Allied victory, but the losses were huge. The British lost an estimated 275,000 men, while the Germans lost 220,000, according to the Canadian War Museum.

More than 4,000 Canadian soldiers died in the fighting there, and almost 12,000 were wounded.

In 1920, the remains that would later be identified as Cunningham's were relocated to Tyne Cot Cemetery and registered as "A Corporal of the Great War — 44th Battalion, Canadian Infantry — Known unto God."

In April 2020, the Directorate of History and Heritage received a research report from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, detailing the potential identification of the grave. Following extensive research, it was determined in November 2023 the grave could only be that of Cpl. Cunningham.

He is now commemorated on Panel 28 of the Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial, which honours the soldiers killed in the Ypres Salient during the First World War. He is also commemorated on his family headstone, located in the Brandon Municipal Cemetery.

"More than a century ago, a young man from Manitoba courageously sought to serve his country in wartime," Minister of National Defence Bill Blair said in a statement.

"As we honour Cpl. Cunningham for his dedication, we assure his family that Canada will forever be grateful for his service."

Since it was founded in 2007, the Canadian Armed Forces' casualty identification program has identified the remains of 36 Canadians, according to the government release.

In 2019, the program also took on the additional responsibility of identifying the graves of Canadian service members buried as unknowns, and has since identified 12.

There are currently 40 active investigations involving remains, and 38 involving graves.