1066158 Pte. William Wallace Graham was born on August 4th, 1898, in Jackson, Kepple Township, Ontario. One of six children born to William and Julia Graham, William was the only son of their three boys to enlist in the C.E.F.
William attested into the 248th Battalion, in Owen Sound, on February 1st, 1917. Billeted locally over the remainder of the winter William would have been put up in one of the hotels in Owen Sound. Sailing with the unit in May of that year, the 248th Battalion was absorbed into the 8th Reserve Battalion upon its arrival in England. During this time William was hospitalized with parotiditis, a swelling of the salivary gland.
Taken on strength of the 4th C.M.R. in the field, on November 9th, 1917, in a reinforcement draft after Passchendaele, William servied with the unit through the winter, seeing his first full scale offensive operations in the battles that made up the Canadian Corps final 100 days of the war.
It was during the Battle of Arras that William, on August 29th, 1918, was wounded in the hand. He returned to the unit to take part in the Battle of Cambrai, where he was wounded a second time, on Octobver 17th. The bullet wound to his left leg was severe enough that William was medically evacuated to England.
Private William Wallace Graham sailed home on the Empress Britain and was struck off strength from the C.E.F. on February 18th, 1919.
Returning to Grey County, Ontario, William latterly passed away on December 8th, 1972, and lies at rest in Owen Sound's Greenwood Cemetery.
Credit and many thanks go George Auer for the above biography.