Individual Details

This is the story of a brave soldier. A notation in local records claims that "he was a Lieutenant killed in training during WWI." This was not the case at all, for this soldier fought at the Somme, was wounded, commissioned from the ranks, and returned to battle, where he was finally killed. Wallace joined the Canadian Army and rose to the rank of Sergeant -Major. At the Battle of Courcelette, Wallace related in long letters home, "we were within three hundred yards of our objective - the town. Then the enemy opened fire with machine guns and rifles. Our men fell fast but we soon reached the first German trench, and then our bayonets ran red in the sunset of that wild September day - for there were many dead comrades to be avenged. We had just left this trench when - zing! - a nasty bullet pierced my right leg. I still tried to go on but only got a few yards when a second bullet bashed high up in my left leg, and I fell headlong into a shell hole bleeding badly. I soon became very weak from pain and loss of blood, and would have counted no price too great for a drink of water. Later I lapsed into unconsciousness, but revived with the falling of darkness, and dragged myself under cover from the German fire. I think I crawled about five hundred yards. With the coming of daylight I became delirious and wandered around feeling the clammy faces of the dead, seeking to find the Red Cross men to bind up my wounds. So I went on like this until the stretcher bearers found me. They had a very heavy curtain of German shell fire to carry me through at one point, so to make a long story short, I got it again in the back. I was transferred by stages to Boulogne, and then across to England." Wallace recovered in England, and while there was promoted to the Officer Corp as a Lieutenant. He returned to battle with the 26th Canadian Battalion. From there his name appeared on a casualty list, "Lieut. J.W Corri, killed in Action." A New Brunswick newspaper picked up this notice, and wrote, "the initials are the same, and it is feared that it is one and the same [as Lieutenant J. Wallace Corey]. Lieutenant Corey went overseas with the original 26th Battalion, and served as a Sergeant-Major. He was grievously wounded, but after a miraculous recovery, he was evidently able to return again to the front. He was given his commission in England following his wounds. It will be the sincere wish of his numerous friends that the name is not his, though that seems too goods to hope." His name is on the cenotaph in New Canaan. He was called "James W.P. Corey" in the 1901 census, but afterwards called Wallace.References: "Bayonets Ran Red in Sunset of that Wild September Day", a report in an unidentified Saint John newspaper; "Lieutenant J.W. Corey ... killed in Action," also from an unidentified Saint John newspaper. [Corey Book]

Birth	24 Feb 1891	New Canaan, Brunswick Parish, Queens County, New Brunswick
Death	1918

Father	DAVID S. COREY (1856 - 1948)
Mother	SERAPHINA F. CALHOUN (1858 - 1946)