111452 Cpl. Bryan Sheridan
Menin Gate Memorial, Ieper, Belgium - please click for a larger version of Panel 32.
Bryan was born in Navan, County Meath, Ireland, on 22nd July 1885, the son of Thomas and Margaret Sheridan of Grange Bective, Navan, Co. Meath.
He had two brothers, William and Philip, who both also fought in World War 1. William joined the 1st Battalion, Irish Guards Regiment (Service Number 5949), and was killed in action in Flanders on 18th May 1915. Philip joined the 3rd Battalion, Leinster Regiment (Service Number 6081), and was subsequently transferred to the 16th Battalion, Machine Gun Corps (Service Number 73973) on 9th March 1918.
Philip was wounded and taken prisoner on 21st March 1918 and spent the remainder of the war in a POW camp. He was repatriated after the war and demobilised in October 1919.
Bryan served for two years in the Irish Guards Regiment. On completion of his term of engagement, he was transferred to the Army Reserves and was given permission to emigrate to Canada. He settled in Amherst, Nova Scotia, where he worked as a "Teamster". He was single and a Roman Catholic. He re-enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, in Amherst, on 30th March 1915.
Initially assigned to the 6th Battalion Canadian Mounted Rifles, Bryan arrived in France from Folkstone on 24th of October 1915. He was subsequently transferred to the 4th CMR on 2nd January 1916 under a divisional reshuffle. Byran was with 'C' company in the trenches in front of Armagh Wood, south east of Ypres, on 2nd June 1916, the day the German artillery barrage began in the 'Battle for Mount Sorrel'.
His service file records that he was reported wounded on the same day and it is likely that he was killed in the initial artillery assault and subsequent mine explosion under their trenches by the German army. His body was never recovered. Though he was initially listed as wounded believed missing, he was later formally reported as missing believed killed on 2nd or 3rd June 1916, on 3rd April 1917.
Bryan is commemorated on Panel 32 of the Menin Gate Memorial in Ieper (Ypres) Belgium; his name appearing there along with 57,000 or so names of men who were killed in the defence of Ypres, and whose remains were never recovered.
Thanks and credit for the biography go to great nephew, Patrick Daly.
Menin Gate Memorial Panel 32 image is courtesy of 4cmr.com