Private James Peter Pegg

Private, 18th Battalion, Infantry (Army).

Duty Nobly Done indicates this soldier died as a P.O.W.

Circumstances of Death Card states:

"Previously reported (through German sources) Died of Wounds whilst Prisoner of War, now for official purposes presumed to have Died of Wounds whilst Prisoner of War at Field Lazaret Iseghem." (Gunshot wounds, Shoulder and Upper Arm, Left.)

Imagine your nearest park reduced to a cold quagmire of mud, craters filled with water, bodies half buried in the mud, no trees or vegetation. That is what faced Peter PEGG at dawn on the morning of November 12, 1917 at Passchendaele, France. The attack on the Germans had been stalled by the battlefield conditions. Wounded men drowned in the water filled crater holes unable to get back up out of the mud. You might be in an underground bunker when a shell exploded and you were buried alive. The battlefield conditions could be just as dangerous as facing the enemy.

Peter PEGG was sent up to the front line where he was slightly wounded in the left arm and was making his way back to a dressing station. It is not known what happened to him after that. He was buried by the Ger-mans and the cross at the museum is the original cross placed on his grave.

Peter PEGG lived a short life, born 1 June 1897 in Harwich Township, Kent County, Ontario, the ninth child and seventh son of Peter PEGG and his wife Keziah JACKLIN.

The paternal grandfather of J. Peter was James PEGG, born in Saxthorpe, Norfolk County, England, from a line of PEGG family who were house and stack thatchers. As adults, James with his brothers, Thomas, John and William and their sister Mary Ann all came to Ontario in 1835, settling near Burlington, Ontario and marrying near there. James married Elizabeth WHARTON in 1849 and started a family. In 1852, he traveled on foot to Harwich Township near Blenheim, cleared the tim-bered land, placed it under cultivation and erected buildings before bringing his family to live there. There was no railroad and no luxuries. The family traveled by wagon with all their belongings. James and Elizabeth had a daughter Frances Ann, followed by three sons, Peter, Henry J., and William Thomas. All of the local PEGG descendants today come from the lines of Peter and William Thomas and Frances Ann as Henry relo-cated to New Mexico for the rest of his life and then spelled his last name PEGUE.

James PEGG from Saxthorpe, Burlington, and now Blenheim, had purchased 139 acres on Lot 9, Concession 2, West Com-munication Road, Harwich Township on 17 November 1848. Today, descendants of this family still remain on seven acres of the land. My sister Judith and her husband Hank DERKZEN have a home and nursery of shrubs and trees there.

Source: http://www.ogs.on.ca/kent/Newsletters/KNL-2014summer.pdf

2 brothers survived the war. Private Charles Amos Pegg, reg. no. 3206439 of the 10th Battalion and Private Albert Pegg, reg. no. 880507 who enlisted in the 186th Overseas Battalion.