Harold Cecil Fogarty enlisted as a signaller in the 201st Battalion 10 April 1916. After training for some time at Camp Borden, his battalion, having reached only a little over six hundred strong, was broken up and divided among two others which were also below strength, the half to which he belonged going to the 198th Battalion, Canadian Buffs. After training at Camp Whitley, England, until early in 1918, he felt, as he himself expressed it in one of his letters home, that he had gone overseas for more important work and more effective service than training-camp routine, so he asked permission to join a draft that was going to the Front. Arriving in France, he was attached to the19th Battalion that was in many actions and which suffered severely. He was wounded about 16 April 1918 during a trench raid in the vicinity of Lens, a section where his brother, Will, had also been wounded some months before. While in hospital, the Germans bombed it from the air and a portion of it was wrecked, with nurses and wounded soldiers killed and wounded. Harold rejoined his battalion shortly before the Allies' great offensive began, marking the beginning of the end of the war. He was with the reinforcements that followed up the memorable battle of Amiens 08 August and took part in the activities that followed until the battle of Arras. On the morning of the second day of this battle, which ended in the breaking of the famous Hindenburg Line, the enemy opened heavy machine gun and shell fire on the advancing Canadians. Harold was instantly killed by bursting shrapnel. His body is buried in Windmill Cemetery, a recognized British burial ground in northern France.
In Memory of Private HAROLD CECIL FOGARTY 228306, 19th Bn., Canadian Infantry (Central Ontario Regiment) who died age 25 on 27 August 1918 Son of Edwin H. and Thomasine Fogarty, of Port Hope, Ontario. Remembered with honour WINDMILL BRITISH CEMETERY, MONCHY-LE-PREUX
