838979 Pte. Gordon Rufus Cutting was born on June 21st, 1897, in Dobbington, Bruce County, Ontario.
Moving to the small village of Shallow Lake, Gordon was working as an operator when he attested to the 147th Battalion, in Owen Sound, on March 7th, 1916. He was assigned to "D" Company.
Billeted locally over the winter the 147th Battalion mobilized in Owen Sound in the spring of 1916 and left for training at Camp Niagara. As the conditions in the Camp were wanting the unit moved to the new training facility of Camp Borden in late June. In September the unit received their orders to proceed overseas, but due to an outbreak of diphtheria they were detained in Amherst, Nova Scotia, for over a month. The unit finally sailed for Great Britain on November 14th 1916 on the S.S. Olympic, sister ship of the earlier ill-fated Titanic.
On January 1st, 1917, the 147th Battalion ceased to exist when it became the nucleus for the 8th Reserve Battalion, whose task it was to supply reinforcements to the 58th Battalion and the 4th C.M.R.
On April 22th, 1917, Gordon was taken on strength with the 4th C.M.R. in a draft of reinforcements replacing the casualties inflicted during the Battle of Arras, a battle that included the Canadian battle of Vimy Ridge.
Gordon saw service with the 4th C.M.R. through the summer of 1917, but was wounded on October 27th, 1917, during the Battle of Passchendaele. The wound appears to have been severe enough to have taken him out of the war, as he was struck off strength on March 16th, 1918. Returning to Shallow Lake, Gordon found work as a section man for the Canadian National Railway and in 1923 he married Mabel Walker of Nottingham, England.
Biography credit: George Auer