People on board

HIGGINS, Thomas

Thomas Higgins enlisted in the 200th Battalion of the Canadian Over-Seas Expeditionary Force on 8th January 1917 in Winnipeg, Manitoba.  His address at the time was given as the Occidental Hotel, Winnipeg. He gave his date and place of birth as 10th September 1888 in Co. Tyrone, Ireland, and his occupation as Laborer. No further information is known about is family connection with Co. Tyrone. He listed his “next-of-kin” as a “Charles Ilgrai” of Weyburn, Saskatchewan.

Thomas arrived in England on 14th May 1917 on the S. S. Megantic. In May 1918 he was assigned to the 2nd Battalion Machine Gun Corps in France. He was wounded in August 1918 on the Drocourt-Quéant Line and returned to the Military Hospital, Chatham. He was treated for a gunshot wound to the chest and left leg and discharged from Bexhill-on-Sea hospital on 27th September 1918. He was returning from recuperation leave on the RMS Leinster when he died. His body was recovered and buried in Grangegorman Military Cemetery, Dublin. Records show that the Military authorities were unable to trace his nominated next-of-kin. He is remembered on the Saskatchewan Virtual War Memorial.