Skinner, Driver Archibald

Service highlights

  • Name: Archibald “Archie” Skinner
  • Service number: 340967
  • Rank: Driver
  • Branch: Canadian Field Artillery
  • Enlisted: 6 July 1916 (Toronto), 70th Battery, Canadian Field Artillery
  • Overseas service: England, then France (mid 1917)
  • Unit in the field: 3rd Brigade, Canadian Field Artillery, serving with the 1st Canadian Division
  • Key campaign: Ypres Salient, including Passchendaele (Oct 1917)
  • Gas casualties: Evacuated after a gas attack, 4 Nov 1917, long recovery and recurring lung issues
  • Final illness and death: Influenza, admitted 23 Oct 1918, died 3 Nov 1918
  • Burial: Bramshott (St. Mary) Churchyard, Hampshire, England
  • Remembered in St. Marys: Commemorated on the St. Marys Cenotaph

A Life and Service, Remembered

Archibald “Archie” Skinner was born in St. Marys, and his early records are a reminder of how young many of these men truly were. In 1916, like thousands of others eager to serve, he understated his age to enlist, with medical notes recording an “apparent age” of 18 years and ten months, while other records point to an August 1899 birth.

He enlisted in Toronto on 6 July 1916 with the 70th Battery of the Canadian Field Artillery and soon found himself overseas, first in England and later in France. By mid 1917, he was serving with the 3rd Brigade, Canadian Field Artillery in Belgium, supporting the 1st Canadian Division. As a Driver, Archie’s work was the kind that decided whether guns could keep firing. Drivers moved ammunition, supplies, and rations forward along shelled roads and broken tracks, often through mud that swallowed wheels and slowed everything to a crawl. It was relentless, physical work, done under pressure and usually out of sight.

In October 1917, his brigade moved from the Lens sector to the Ypres Salient for the fighting at Passchendaele. The conditions were brutal, and the effort to keep the guns supplied became a nightly struggle against shellfire, mud, exhaustion, and gas. Archie was caught in a gas attack on 4 November 1917 and evacuated, then spent months in hospital in England. Although discharged as a convalescent, his lungs never fully recovered. Even after further treatment in 1918, he continued to struggle.

In the fall of 1918, as influenza swept through crowded camps and hospitals, Archie was admitted again, this time with influenza, and he died on 3 November 1918. He was buried in Bramshott, Hampshire. His story carries a quiet truth about service, it is not only the men lost in a single moment at the front, but also those whose bodies were worn down by the work, the exposure, and the aftereffects that followed them long after the guns went silent.

Major actions and service milestones

  • Mid 1917: Posted to France, joined the 3rd Brigade, Canadian Field Artillery in Belgium
  • Oct 1917: Moved into the Ypres Salient for Passchendaele operations
  • 4 Nov 1917: Evacuated after a gas attack, extended hospital treatment in England
  • Jul 1918: Further hospital treatment for weakened lungs
  • 23 Oct to 3 Nov 1918: Influenza hospitalization, died 3 Nov 1918

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