Lieutenant Daniel Galer Hagarty
PERSONAL INFORMATION
MILITARY INFORMATION
- Lieutenant, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, Infantry (Army).
- Lieutenant (Army).
RESEARCH INFORMATION
Son of Lt. Col. E. W. Hagarty and Mrs. Charlotte E. Hagarty, of 662, Euclid Avenue, Toronto, Ontario. Enlisted from University of Toronto COTC, June 1915. 3 years prior service with 2nd Battalion, Queen's Own Rifles. Original overseas unit 2nd University Company. Joined the P.P.C.L.I. in the field January 30, 1916.
An article entitled "Place Memorial Tablet in Harbord Collegiate / Honour Memory of Lieut. Hagarty Killed in Desperate Fight One Year Ago" appeared in the Toronto World on June 2nd, 1917 at this link:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=SJwjAAAAIBAJ&sjid=4ygDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5656,1258203
According to the article, a brass tablet was placed in the Harbord Collegiate Institute in Toronto in memorial of Lieut. Hagarty, PPCLI. These were the details as they were published in this article:
"He was in command of No. 7 Platoon on the left of Capt. Niven's company, in the most advanced part of the salient, with Capt. Percy Molson in charge of No. 8 Platoon on his right. He had entered the trenches on the evening of May 31, within an hour after returning from a week's leave in London, where he was thought to be sojourning before returning to Canada to join his father's battalion, the 201st Toronto Light Infantry, as captain and adjutant. The bombardment which began the two weeks' battle of Zillebeke started at 8.30 a.m., on June 2, and lasted for four hours. About 10.30 a.m. Capt.Molson sent an orderly to get a report for the C.O. as to the state of affairs on the left. This orderly never came back. A second was sent and returned in a short time with word that Lieut. Hagarty had been killed and his platoon practically wiped out. At 12.30 Sergt. Patterson, who had seen Lieut. Hagarty writing the report, found the body under that of the orderly, Pte. MacDonald, in a bay of a trench. The parapet was all blown in and the bodies in full view of the enemy. Owing to sniping at close range it was impossible to recover the bodies. At 1 o'clock the Germans came over on each side of this trench. Capt. Molson, with a small remnant of his platoon, held the enemy at bay until he was wounded by a bullet in the jaw. The remnant of Capt. Niven's company retired on the supports just before daybreak on the following morning overland. On that day the Princess Patricias saved the situation by hanging on when others were retiring, and prevented the Germans from breaking through to Calais. Only three of Lieut. Hagarty's platoon came out alive, and the regiment suffered some 500 casualties, including Col. Buller and five other officers killed and 16 wounded. On Sunday morning, June 4, a handful crawled back to billets more dead than alive, and a roll call that evening showed a muster of a little over 100 out of 800 or 900 men. On June 13 the Germans were driven out of a greater part of the captured trenches, but since June 2 none but the enemy have been in possession of that part where Lieut. Hagarty fell. Col. and Mrs. Hagarty are also placing a memorial tablet for their son in the Church of the Redeemer, where he was baptized and confirmed."