Remembrance Day: Canadian Forestry Corps

Established on 14 November 1916 The Canadian Forestry Corps (CFC) provided lumber for the Allied war effort by cutting and preparing timber in the United Kingdom and on the continent of Europe in both the First World War and the Second World War. Forestry units also cleared terrain for the construction of installations such as airfields and runway, prepared railway ties, as well as lumber for the creation of barracks, road surfaces, ammunition crates, trench construction, etc. These units were sometimes called on in the First World War to perform as infantry. Read more about the CFC here.
435 CFC men are listed by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission as First World War casualties. 174 have their final resting place in the UK, 138 in France, and 110 in Canada.
Their average age at death was 32.
The first to die was 52-year-old Sergeant Richard Goodin, buried at Spencesville Union Cemetery in Eastern Ontario. He was the first of three who died before the CFC was officially established.
Private Albert E. Freeman, age 36, was the last to die. He is interred at North Battleford Cemetery.
The oldest was 67-year old Corporal George G. Hunter who died of pneumonia on 9 September 1919 and is interred at Mountain View Cemetery in Vancouver.
The youngest recorded by the CWGC was Private James G. Isbester (sometimes Gordon James), age 17, who died in hospital in Brockville, Ontario on 18 February 1918 and is buried at Dinorwic Cemetery, Ontario.