Doupe, Corporal William Ivan

Service highlights

  • Name: William Ivan Doupe
  • Service number: 727289
  • Rank: Corporal
  • Unit: 58th Battalion, Canadian Infantry (Central Ontario Regiment), 9th Infantry Brigade, 3rd Canadian Division
  • Born: September 16, 1894
  • Died: October 2, 1918 (age 24)
  • Buried: Canada Cemetery, Tilloy-lez-Cambrai, Nord, France, Grave II. C. 28
  • Family noted in records: Son of Joseph H. and Emma R. Doupe, of St. Marys, Ontario

A Life and Service Remembered

William Ivan Doupe, known as Ivan, was born near Kirkton and grew up with farm work as part of everyday life. When the war came, he enlisted in the 110th (Perth) Battalion in early 1916, trained through the usual reshuffling that followed arrival in England, and was eventually sent to France as a reinforcement.

He joined the 58th Battalion, part of the 3rd Canadian Division, and served through the grinding middle years of the war and into the final push of 1918. The fighting he moved through was the kind that defined Canada’s experience on the Western Front. He was at Vimy Ridge in April 1917 and later at Hill 70. By the fall of 1917 he was with the battalion through Passchendaele and came through it.

In 1918 the tempo changed. The Canadian Corps became the spearhead of the Allied advance and the 58th was pulled into the hardest days, including the Battle of Amiens in August and the rapid sequence of attacks that followed. Ivan’s service was recognized with promotion, first to lance-corporal in January 1918 and then to corporal in August 1918, the same day he received a good conduct badge.

In the early hours of October 2, 1918, during the fighting toward Cambrai, the 58th was moving back from forward positions when Ivan was struck in the neck by German machine gun fire and killed instantly. He was buried in Canada Cemetery at Tilloy-lez-Cambrai, a cemetery created after the Canadian capture of the area in early October 1918.

Ivan is commemorated on the cenotaph in Rannoch.

Major battles and operations

  • Vimy Ridge: 9 to 12 April 1917
  • Hill 70: 15 to 25 August 1917
  • Passchendaele (Second Battle of Passchendaele): 26 October to 10 November 1917
  • Amiens: 8 to 11 August 1918
  • Canal du Nord: 27 September to 1 October 1918
  • Cambrai (capture of Cambrai): 8 to 9 October 1918

Learn More

https://www.veterans.gc.ca/en/node/601059
https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/military-heritage/first-world-war/personnel-records/Pages/item.aspx?IdNumber=362377
https://livesofthefirstworldwar.iwm.org.uk/lifestory/5838685
https://www.cwgc.org/visit-us/find-cemeteries-memorials/cemetery-details/59000/canada-cemetery-tilloy-lez-cambrai/
https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/services/military-history/history-heritage/casualty-identification-military/canal-du-nord-1918.html
The Fallen by Richard Holt, 727289 Corporal William Ivan Doupe, pg 15