Additions will be checked before being published on the website and where possible will be forwarded to the person who submitted the original entries. Your contact details will not be forwarded, but they can send a reply via this messaging system.
please scroll down to send a message
Mjr. Charles Elliott Sutcliffe
Royal Flying Corps 54th Squadron
from:Lindsay, Ontario, Canada
(d.6th June 1917)
My Great Uncle Charles Sutcliffe enlisted in WWI in Ottawa Canada in 1916 and was seconded to the RFC for training as a pilot and was attached to the 54th Squadron on 3rd of May 1917 to fly the new fighter, Sopwith Scout. They engaged in daily fights with the enemy.
On 6th of June 1917, Charlie failed to return from a combat flight (although the only 54 Squadron Combats In Air Report for that date does not list his name.) The Squadron was flying escort to F.E.s and encountered Hostile Aircraft.
His file records indicate that on 18th of June 1917 "The following information regarding this officer has been obtained from a German message dropped in to our lines "Slightly wounded. Prisoner of War". This has been scratched out and replaced with "Reported Dead." He was shot down near Cambrai, behind enemy lines and was buried in a civilian cemetery at Epinoy, in a privately owned vault, three miles from Cambrai. The Germans had, apparently, given him a full military funeral with honours.
In 1925, contrary to the Canadian War Graves Commission and in violation of a wartime decree, his body was repatriated to Canada for reburial in the Sutcliffe Family Vault (an exact replica of the vault in France) in Riverside Cemetery, Lindsay, Ontario. There is a lot of mystery surrounding how the family got permission to bring him back to Canada but it is believed they somehow convinced authorities that he was an American. There is more to this fascinating story and I will be travelling to Epinoy in the spring of 2017 to find out more.
