The last Canadian soldier to die during the First World War was killed just two minutes before the ceasefire:
George Lawrence Price was a typical Canadian soldier in the First World War, except for the timing of his death, writes Nelson Wyatt of the Canadian Press.
[…]
He holds the sad distinction of being the last Canadian and last Commonwealth soldier to die in the meat-grinder conflict that claimed more than 60,000 Canadians in its four years.
A total of 10,000 men were killed, wounded or listed as missing from all participating armies on the last day of the war, according to historical records.
Price, a 25-year-old farm labourer before he enlisted, was struck by a single shot and killed two minutes before the 11 a.m. armistice went into effect on Nov. 11, 1918.
A native of Port Williams, N.S., he moved to Moose Jaw, Sask., as a young man and joined the army there in October 1917. He would become part of the last allied push that broke the German army.
On Nov. 11, Price was part of the Canadian advance through the outskirts of Mons in Belgium, where the one of the earliest battles of the war had been fought in 1914 and where the first British soldier had been killed.
“They were clearing through the village and people in the village told them to be careful, the Germans are still here,” said Maj. Jim McKillip, a historian with the Canadian Forces directorate of history and heritage. “He pushed on anyway and he got shot.”
Author James McWilliams, in a 1980 Reader’s Digest article entitled “The Last Patrol,” reported that Price and several colleagues were checking out possible German machine-gun nests in the village when the enemy opened fire. Civilians waved to the Canadians, urging them to take shelter in their home.
