A Typical Soldier’s Death

“Canadian Chaplain Tells of Heroic End of Malcolm Gifford, Jr.
Hudson, Jan. 26, 1918 – It was in the terrific fighting for the possession of Passchendaele in a recent great British offensive that Malcolm Gifford, Jr., of this city, was killed, according to information received here by his father from the Rev. George C. Taylor, chaplain of the Thirty-sixth Battery, Canadian Artillery. The young man’s death was previously reported.”

The chaplain, in his letter, stated that Gifford fell after twenty days’ fighting at the utmost point then gained in the British advance.

“To die in such a struggle was to crown a life with glory,” the chaplain wrote. “It has been said that the Victoria Cross should have been given to every man who took part in it. The work had been tried again and again by others but, when all had failed, our boys brushed aside ‘impossibility’ and carried all before them. Day after day, no German fire could divert them from their guns. Your brave boy and another fell together. It was a typical soldier’s death.”