Name: Louis Malcolm Gaudet Rank: Private Service Number: 2329523 Service: 71 Company, Canadian Forestry Corps Date of Birth: May 2, 1894 Place of Birth: Yarmouth, Yarmouth County, Nova Scotia Date of Enlistment: May 23, 1917 Place of Enlistment: Halifax, Halifax, County, Nova Scotia Address at Enlistment: Halifax, Halifax County, Nova Scotia Age at Enlistment: 23 Height: 5 feet, 5 inches Complexion: Dark Eye Colour: Brown Hair Colour: Black Occupation: Hotel Steward Marital Status: Single Next of Kin: Edward Gaudet (Father) Date of Discharge: April 7, 1919 (at St. John, New Brunswick) Age: 24 Date of Death: November 1972 Age: 78 Cemetery: Unknown Louis Malcolm Mathurin Gaudet was the son of Edward Mack Gaudet (1865-1938) and Mary Elizabeth ‘Eliza’ (Thibodeau) Gaudet (1871-1932), and the brother of Seraphie Lillian (Sarah) Gaudet (1891-1973), Anne Agnes (Annie) Gaudet (1893-1956), Adolphe Stephen Gaudet (1896-1938), Antoine Camille Gaudet (1898-1906), Jean (John) Ernest Gaudet (1899-1985), André “Andrew” Uriel Gaudet (1902-1971), James Isidore Gaudet (1904-1986), Victor Pius Gaudet (1906-1910), Mildred Madeleine (Gaudet) Wilcox (1908-1991), Victor-Antoine Gaudet (1910-1980), and Michel Bernard Gaudet (1913-1976). Louis’ brother Adolphe Stephen Gaudet served with the 112th and the 165th Battalion, and his brother Jean (John) Ernest Gaudet served with the 219th, the 161st, and the 47th Battalion. Louis served in Canada, England, and France with the Canadian Forestry Corps. He embarked Halifax in June of 1917 aboard the SS Justicia and landed in Liverpool, England on July 4, 1917, and was posted to the Base Depot at CFC Sunningdale in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead, Berkshire, England. He departed CFC Sunningdale on August 7, 1917, and transferred to France via Le Havre with the 71st Company of the Canadian Forestry Corps on August 12th. He was appointed Acting Lance Corporal on June 1, 1918. A note in Col. Nicholson’s “Official History” provides a picture of the success of the Canadian Forestry Companies: By September 1917 Sir Douglas Haig was able to report that his armies had become practically self-supporting where timber was concerned; between May and October of that year, forestry units provided more than three-quarters of a million tons of lumber. It was during this period that a Canadian mill at La Joux set a record which, in the words of the officer commanding the Jura Group C.F.C., “cannot be obtained by any of the older firms in the Ottawa Valley, under the best civilian organization” – 160,494 feet board measure in nineteen hours running time. While the efforts of the mill at La Joux seem impressive, the war diary of 71 Company reports that they exceeded La Joux’s 8,447 feet board per hour by 149 feet board per hour in June 1918. During January and February, the company’s workshops and machinery were packed up for evacuation and all the huts in District 12 were turned over to the French Authorities. On March 25, 1919, 71 Company, comprising four officers and 112 other ranks, was evacuated from the District to Sunningdale via Le Havre. Louis returned to Canada on the SS Caronia and was discharged in Saint John, New Brunswick with demobilization at the end of the war. Working as a waiter, Louis immigrated to the United States in 1919 aboard the SS Governor Cobb to Boston. He completed his Declaration of Intention to become a US citizen in New York in 1942. When he completed his WWII draft registration, he was still employed in the hotel business, working at the Essex House hotel in New York at 160 Central Park South (the JW Marriott Essex House today). Louis died at the age of 78 in November of 1972. His final resting place is unknown.

Source: Library and Archive Canada