Volume 20 www.legionnl.com 19 After Sailly-Saillisel, the month of March was quieter for the Battalion, and they spent their time re-enforcing and training for battles to come. On 29 March 2017 the 1st Battalion began to make its way to the north-east, where the Battalion would take part in what would be known as the Battle of Arras, at Monchy-le-Preux. The battle began on the 14th of April and would last ten days; it would be, after Beaumont Hamel, the most costly day of the war in Newfoundland lives, with 487 casualties on the 14th alone. Private Herbert John Vokey would be recorded as “missing in action” on that date; he would be officially recorded as “presumed dead” on 17 November 1917. According to Lieutenant Cyril Gardner, he was last seen in a trench “with a small bible in his hand which a bullet had gone through, and with one boot off and one boot on.” It’s here that the story takes a little twist. Lieutenant Percy Dobie, of the Royal Scots Fusiliers, had been taken prisoner during a battle near Cambrai, France, on 22 March 1917 and was being held in a German POW hospital in Douai, Northern France. Some days later a young soldier, still in uniform, wounded and unconscious, was brought in and placed in the bed next to him. The next morning that young soldier was dead, but before he was taken away someone had gone through his pockets and put his bible on Lieutenant Dobie’s bed. Dobie looked through the bible and found the name “Lizzie Wiseman” inside, along with another name which was illegible, and Delby’s Cove, Newfoundland. Lieutenant Dobie was repatriated in December of 1918 and held on to the little bible. Off and on over the years he would think about it but could never find out where Delby’s Cove was. He eventually sent a letter to the public library in St. John’s, where the librarian did know of Delby’s Cove and forwarded the letter to the Postmaster in British Harbour. The Postmaster did know Lizzie Wiseman, who had long since married and was now Lizzie Tavenor living in Corner Brook. He forwarded the letter to Mrs. Tavenor who got in touch with Lieutenant Dobie. Apparently Herbert Vokey had been home on leave prior to leaving for England, and she had given him the pocket size bible at that time; forty years later it was returned to her. There is no record to indicate where Private Vokey was buried, and he is listed as “No Known Grave”. His name is on the Beaumont Hamel War Memorial along with all others with no known grave, and a memorial was erected in the Little Harbour cemetery in his honour. continued.... Memorial to Herbert John Vokey in Little Harbour, Trinity Bay
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