Kenora Great War Project

 

Personal Details
Date of BirthDecember 28, 1890
Place of BirthBallydehob, Cork County
CountryIreland
Marital StatusSingle
Next of KinRobert Dungan (father), Ballydehob, Cork County, Ireland
Trade / CallingGrocer
ReligionMethodist
Service Details
Regimental Number922341
Service Record Link to Service Record
Battalion78th Battalion
ForceCanadian Expeditionary Force
BranchCanadian Infantry
Enlisted / ConscriptedEnlisted
Address at Enlistment816 Strathcona Steet, Winnipeg, Manitoba
Date of EnlistmentApril 25, 1916
Age at Enlistment25
Theatre of ServiceEurope
Prisoner of WarYes
Survived WarYes
Death Details

Dungan, George

Private George Dungan enlisted in April 1916 and served in France with the 78th Battalion. He spent the last three months of the war as a prisoner but he survived and returned to Canada in March 1919.

George was the son of Robert Dungan and Sarah Kingstone of Ballydehob, County Cork, Ireland. Robert was a farmer and he and Sarah were married in Skull, County Cork in 1869. George was born on 28 December 1890 in Ballydehob, a coastal village on the southern tip of Ireland. He had at least three brothers (Richard, John and Herbert) and two sisters (Annie and Lizzie). He immigrated to Canada in May 1914, joining his brother John who had immigrated several years earlier. John had settled in Winnipeg and he operated a grocery store in St. James. George stayed with his brother at first and worked for him as a grocery clerk.

George enlisted in Winnipeg in the spring of 1916, signing up on 25 April with the 200th Battalion. The recruits trained at Camp Hughes over the summer and the winter was spent back in the city. In March 1917 George contracted the measles and he was in the Winnipeg General Hospital for three weeks. Around the end of April the 200th Battalion headed to the east coast, on the first leg of their journey overseas. The men embarked from Halifax on 4 May 1917 on the SS Megantic. After arriving in England they were absorbed into the 11th Reserve Battalion, to be used as reinforcements for other units. George spent ten months training in the UK and in March 1918 he was transferred to the 78th Battalion (Winnipeg Grenadiers) and sent to France.

That spring the Canadians were holding a long stretch of the front line near Arras. Early in the summer they went into reserve before being given several weeks of intensive training in open warfare. The final period of the war, known now as the Hundred Days Offensive, started with the Battle of Amiens (8-11 August 1918) and ended three months later with the Armistice. On the night of 7 August the 78th Battalion moved into position near Amiens and they took part in the operations over the next three days, advancing to the village of Hallu on 10 August. The following morning there was a German counter-attack and the battalion suffered 115 casualties, including 40 men missing. George was among the missing and he was later reported to be a prisoner of war.

George’s prisoner of war index cards record that he was captured unwounded at Hallu on 11 August and transferred from Fresnoy le Grand to the prisoner of war camp at Dulmen. His family was notified and in early November he was moved from Dulmen to Metz. The Armistice was signed on 11 November and three weeks later George was repatriated to England, arriving at Dover on 1 December. He spent another three months in the UK before embarking for Canada on 1 March 1919 on the SS Belgic. He was discharged on demobilization on 5 April in Winnipeg.

Little is known of George’s life after the war. He spent some time living in the Dryden area in northwestern Ontario and in the summer of 1949 he was a foreman at MacMillan, one of a string of lumber camps on the railway between Kenora and Vermillion Bay. Around the same time he became a member of the Kenora branch of the Canadian Legion. George’s date of death and place of burial have not yet been found. When his brother John died in Winnipeg in September 1956 George was not mentioned in his obituary. John is buried in Chapel Lawn Memorial Gardens in Winnipeg.

By Becky Johnson

Dungan-George-90


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