Members of the Canadian Navy participate in a changing of the guard at the the National War Memorial in Ottawa in May, 2025.ANDREJ IVANOV/AFP/Getty Images
Private Fred James Williams was a Baptist factory worker from Sarnia, Ont., with a dark complexion and black hair. Corporal John Kincaid was a teacher in Kelowna, B.C., “foremost in the sports and a bright young fellow generally.” Sergeant Thomas William Jones was an “old soldier” who left behind a wife and four small children.
These men were wounded in action on the battlefields of Europe during the First World War and died after being treated at a military hospital in Le Tréport, France. But before they could be laid to rest, a group of American medical personnel took an interest in them. By 1919, their partial remains had been transferred to a museum in Pennsylvania as research specimens, part of a group of more than 100 soldiers, 12 of them Canadian.
Sergeant Thomas William Jones was an 'old soldier' who left behind a wife and four small children.Veterans Affairs Canada/Supplied
This was standard practice at the time, intended to advance medicine by studying novel injuries sustained in the crucible of modern trench warfare, such as the effect of mustard gas exposure on the lungs. But after an audit of its collections, the medical history museum that housed them – the Mütter Museum and Historical Medical Library of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia – has now returned the remains so they can be interred in the graves of the soldiers they were taken from.
The Department of National Defence announced the effort on Tuesday, along with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which led a process that also involved casualties from Australia, New Zealand and Britain. Many of the reburials will take place at the Mont Huon Military Cemetery in Le Tréport, near Dieppe. Ten of the Canadian soldiers are already interred there; their partial remains will be added to the existing graves.
“Our priority is always to honour all who rest in our care,” the commission said in an unsigned statement. “In this instance, that means ensuring any partial remains returned to us are treated with dignity and commemorated appropriately.”
The Canadians who were identified came from all over the country and spanned in age from their teens to their 40s. Biographical snapshots compiled by Veterans Affairs sketch a picture of who they were and why, in some cases, researchers may have been interested in them.
Private Charles Arthur Boyce was a newspaper printer who had worked at the Winnipeg Free Press and Edmonton Daily Journal.Veterans Affairs Canada/Supplied
Private Charles Arthur Boyce, a newspaper printer who had worked at the Winnipeg Free Press and Edmonton Daily Journal, died from gunshot wounds to the back, but an obituary at the time mentioned that he had also been gassed.
To respect the privacy of the dead and their descendants, both the DND and the commission declined to describe the exact nature of the remains being returned.
But Base Hospital 10, where the remains were collected, was staffed by doctors and nurses from the Pennsylvania Hospital who were interested in learning more about the ravages inflicted on the body by ever-evolving technologies of war. Practitioners sometimes removed wounded organs or body parts during surgery or at autopsy for further study, a practice approved by Allied governments at the time.
“Physicians wanted to know how new weapons, such as mustard gas, affected the structures of the lungs and what new modes of fighting, such as trench warfare, inflicted new types of injuries,” Kareen Preble, spokesperson for the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, said in a statement on behalf of the museum. “Their goal was to understand the nature of these injuries to provide better treatments or improved protection for soldiers.”
Corporal Frank Jancey was a labourer who enlisted in Fort Frances, Ont.Veterans Affairs Canada/Supplied
After the war, the collection from Base Hospital 10 was transferred to the Mütter Museum, which bills itself as “America’s finest museum of medical history” and dates to the 19th century. There, the remains were “safely stored” and used for pathological research, not public display, according to the statement.
It was only in 2021 that the museum fully audited its collection for the first time in almost 80 years. During its Postmortem Project two years later, “which focused on questions of respect and consent,” the museum matched its records with an online database of First World War casualties and identified the cluster of Base Hospital 10 remains in its custody.
The museum contacted the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in September, 2025, and the two organizations worked together to match what had been medical specimens with human identities, often courageous ones.
Private Somerville MacPherson enlisted in Vernon, B.C., and received a Military Medal for bravery. Corporal Frank Jancey, a labourer who enlisted in Fort Frances, Ont., was another of the Canadians to earn a Military Medal. Sergeant Martin James Murphy of the Canadian Machine Gun Corps received the same decoration.
Earlier this month, the remains were finally transferred to the commission’s care in northern France, where “specialist technical staff will undertake all interments, ensuring they are carried out with dignity and respect.”
The Department of National Defence is now trying to contact descendants of the soldiers in question. Private Kenneth Dougal Crawford and Private Norman McNeill survived the war but had partial remains included in the museum’s collection, perhaps taken during surgery.
Private Edward Lea, who enlisted in Vancouver, died on Aug. 29, 1917. Private Charles Lorne Parkin died on Sept. 9, 1918.
Private John (Jack) Kincaid died of gunshot wounds to the chest and neck on Oct. 1, 1918, two months shy of his 20th birthday, and just six weeks before the war ended.
His parents learned about the fatal injuries by telegram.