Deseronto Archives

On this day in 1918, Lorne Gould Oliver was killed shortly after the Battle of Amiens in France. He was serving with the 4th Field Ambulance at Warvillers. The war diary for his unit gives Oliver’s date of death as August 13th, but other casualty records state that he was killed on the 15th.

Here is the war diary entry for the 4th Field Ambulance for the day Lorne Oliver’s death was reported:

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s report on the circumstances of Oliver’s death explains that he was returning from duty when he was killed by shellfire. The corresponding record for John McLachlan, the man he was with (and who was killed at the same time), explains that they were stretcher-bearers.

The diary entry for this day in 1918 for the same unit gives some idea of the scale of the Canadian losses in the Battle of Amiens (August 8th-12th), as well as an indication of the amount of work that stretcher-bearers like Oliver and McLachlan were undertaking:

ESTIMATE OF LOSSES

A general estimate places the losses in the Canadian Corps for the four days fighting at 8000, viz:-

2000 Dead

2000 Stretcher Cases

4000 Walking Cases

Oliver and McLachlan were buried beside each other in the Warvillers Churchyard Extension in France. Lorne is remembered on the cenotaph in Napanee.