Bushby, Claude Thomas

Claude Thomas Bushby was born 22 March 1891 in Easternwich (a suburb of Melbourne), Victoria, Australia to William and Lucy Bushby. By the 1910 United Stated Census the father, mother and Claude were living in San Francisco, California, where William worked as a plasterer and Claude was a store clerk. Claude claims to have returned to Australia to join the Australian army but was rejected due to bad teeth. Claude returned to the United States where he registered for the American draft on 5 June 1917 but eventually travelled to British Columbia to join the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF).

He attested to the CEF with the Forestry Depot, Canadian Engineers, in Victoria, B.C. 19 June 1917. Curiously, he seems to have been sent to the Quebec depot recruiting for the 196th Canadian Infantry Battalion (Western Universities) for a few weeks before boarding SS Messanabie for the United KIngdom 8 August 1917, arriving there three weeks later. In the United Kingdom he trained with the 19th and 1st Reserve Battalions before being sent to France 19 February 1918 to join his field unit. This was the 29th Canadian Infantry Battalion (Vancouver), an element of the 6th Infantry Brigade in the 2nd Canadian Division. The unit was known as Tobin’s Tigers after one of its commanders. The 29th Battalion had fought at Amiens in August 1918 at the start of the 100 days offensive and presumably Bushby participated. By the beginning of September it was at Guemappe, France in a position on the Delcourt-Drury road near the Canal du Nord. On 5 September, after the 4th Division had made it across the Canal the 29th Battalion sent a section across in its sector surprising some of the enemy. However the rest of the unit seems to have had some difficulty in making contact with their scouts in the ensuing machine gun fire. During their actions on the edge of the Canal in the evening, the 29th Battalion suffered some 16 casualties, one of whom was Bushby who received either a gunshot wound or shell fragments to the right eye and leg. He was evacuated to the No. 2 Stationary Hospital at Abbeville and within days to the Stepping Hill Military Hospital in the United Kingdom. His wounds seemed to clear up fairly well but sight was not fully restored to his right eye. He received a medical review board at Epsom in December 1918 and though he was classified as fit for rear area work he was repatriated to Canada 24 January 1919. A final medical board was held in Vancouver 20 February 1919 where it was recognized that he had essentially lost sight in his right eye. He was discharged 24 February 1919 as a result of general demobilization.

He returned to his parents’ home in San Francisco where, by 1920, he was working as a shipping clerk in a machine shop. By 1926 he had married his wife Evelyn and in 1930 was employed by the San Francisco Examiner as a “collector” in their advertising department. According to his Second World War U.S. draft card, he remained in steady employment with them through 1940 and 1942. His wife died in 1957 and there is no record of any children. He appears to have remarried in 1964 and died in San Francisco 12 February 1975.