Thanks to DNA technology, a Canadian soldier killed at Vimy Ridge has been identified ninety years later. Private Herbert Peterson, a 22-year-old soldier from rural Alberta never returned from the French battlefields of the First World War. His parents and five brothers were left in the dark about his fate until his body was found four years ago and finally identified by a team of Canadian scientists, historians and officials.
The investigation leading to this discovery took three years, involving genealogical and anthropological research and DNA testing. Peterson’s remains were found entwined with those of another Canadian soldier by French construction workers building a gas pipeline near Avion, in October, 2003. Pieces of his uniform, a cap badge and ammunition helped investigators connect the soldiers to the 49th Battalion, Canadian Infantry. Due to the location of the bodies, it was determined that both had died on June 8 or 9, 1917, fighting a night raid against the Germans, two months after the Canadian victory at Vimy Ridge.
A forensic reconstruction of their deaths concludes that Peterson was seriously injured and scooped up by the unidentified soldier who walked them towards Canadian lines when both were killed by a shell. Forensic analysis of the soldiers’ teeth narrowed the search down to five possible names and it was ultimately a DNA sample given by Peteron’s nephew and namesake Herbert Peterson, that led to confirmation of the soldier’s identity, much to his family’s happy surprise.
Private Herbert Peterson’s name has been taken off the missing at Vimy memorial and he has been given a proper full military funeral at the La Chaudière Military Cemetery, during the ceremony marking the 90th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge. Vimy Ridge is considered one of Canada’s greatest military victories, in which the Canadian troops launched a night attack on German trenches near Arras, France, relieving the city from immediate threat of attack and giving the Allied Forces their first victory against the Germans in a year and a half.
