From the News

Dated: January 29, 1916

STIRRED BY DEEDS OF A BRAVE BROTHER

Policeman Thirde Has Joined the Sportsmen's Battalion -- Sixth in Family.

When Police Constable Samuel Thirde, of 41 Bala avenue, enlisted, the Sportsmen's Battalion secured one of its biggest men. He is a brawny Scotsman, whom no sensible German would care to meet in single-handed controversy. Constable Thirde was born in Aberdeenshire, in 1884. Ten years ago he came to Canada and almost immediately afterwards secured a position on the Toronto police force. For the past seven years he has been attached to No. 1 division. By virtue of this long service he enters the army with the rank of sergeant. His wife, Jean Anderson Third, to whom he was married in Toronto six years ago, is one of the most prominent Scottish vocalists in the city.

Constable (now Sergeant) Third is one of a family of eight brothers, six of whom are now with the colors. Four of them, Alex, Robert, Harry and James are with the "Gay Gordons", Alex being the champion boxer of the regiment. William is with the Black Watch. A younger brother remains at home with the "auld folk" simply because he is too young to enlist.

How Corporal Robert Thirde rescued 17 wounded men under fire in France and won his D.C.M., is a story which has been widely published in Old Country papers, and perhaps served to rouse the military insticts of Toronto's big policeman. He was in a fight succeeding the battle at Cambrai. When the regiment went into action Corporal Thirde's platoon was in reserve. Ammunition had to be carried to the firing line and he was appointed to the task. When he returned to his platoon he found a number of wounded who required to be carried to safety. One man, Private Mitchell, of Fraserburg, he bandaged up and carried through the trees under a heavy storm of German machine gun billets. Another man named McIntosh had been hit in the neck and side. Corporal Thirde lay down beside him while, for twenty minutes or more, the German big guns kept firing upon and around them. When the firing ceased the corporal half dragged, half carried his wounded comrade to safety. In all, he rescued seventeen men in the same way, and was much surprised when he afterwards received a medal for his distinguished conduct.

On another occasion, when out of the trenches looking for a cow from which to secure milk for the regimental ???, he heard a tap-tap at a window in one of the burning homes at Cambrai. He rushed upstairs and found there an old woman of eighty. Very hurriedly - for they were in danger of being burned to death - he pushed and rolled her down stairs, bundled her onto a wheel-barrow, and thus got her away to shelter.

Corporal Thirde was four months at the front, spent twenty-one days in the trenches, and took part in ten engagements. At Ypres he was wounded in the head and left thigh. It was thought that he would never again be fit for military service, but he recovered, and is now on duty again with the home forces.