Name: Edgar Keith Matthews Rank: Private First Class Service: “C” Company 19th Brigade, New York National Guard, Albany Company M, 106th Infantry Regiment, 27th Division, United States Army Date of Birth: February 1, 1895 Place of Birth: Darlings Lake, Yarmouth Co., NS Date of Enlistment: May 1917 Place of Enlistment: Albany, New York Age at Enlistment: 21 Next of Kin: Maria Matthews (Wife), 88 South Hawk St, Albany, New York Date of Death: September 26, 1918 Age at Death: 23 Cemetery: Somme American Cemetery, Bony, France Reference: Plot B, Row 5, Grave 6. Commemorated on the Yarmouth War Memorial Edgar Keith Matthews was the son of Albert Lancaster Mathews (1841-1919) and Jane (Harris) Matthews (1855-1933) of Darlings Lake, Yarmouth Co., NS, the brother of Albert Matthews (1882- 1960), and the husband of Marie Verna (Crocker) Matthews (b. 1892). Many documents record the surname as Mathews. Edgar married Marie Verna Crocker of Plymouth, Connecticut, on March 4, 1913, in Boston, Massachusetts. Edgar was employed in the United States and enlisted in Albany, New York in May 1917. He was promoted to Private First Class on November 26, 1917. He is listed in the 1917 Short History Illustrated Roster of the 106th (Page 120). In April 1918, he left Camp Wadsworth near Spartanburg, North Carolina, for France. Edgar and the 106th shipped to Europe in May of 1918 and was initially placed in the East Poperinge Line with the rest of the 27th Division. On July 25, 1918, the 27th Division was slowly rotated into the front line in relief of the British 6th Division. On August 31, 1918, operations of the Ypres-Lys Offensive began to remove the Germans from the Dickebusch Lake and Scherpenberg area. The 106th participated in the reconnaissance that opened the offensive. On September 3rd, 1918, the Germans withdrew from the area, marking the successful completion of the Ypres-Lys Offensive. Alongside the 53rd Brigade and the rest of the 27th Division, the 106th Infantry Regiment attacked German positions in the Second Battle of the Somme from September 24 to October 21, 1918. This offensive proved to be the decisive action which broke what the Allied referred to as the Hindenburg Line (The German Siegfried Line). Private First Class Matthews was killed in action on the second day of the Second Battle of the Somme on September 26, 1918, at Bony, Departement de l'Aisne, Picardie, France and buried in the Somme American Cemetery, France. His widow, Marie Verna Matthews, travelled to France in 1929 as a delegate of the Pilgrimages of Gold Star Mothers and Widows to the Somme to visit Edgar’s grave. She was living at 93 Warren Street in Roxbury, Suffolk County, Massachusetts at the time.