Private Sydney Pink
2537366
Born – Guilford, Surrey England
Lived in New York, New York
Killed in Action, Sept 29, 1918 in the approach on Cambrai at Raillencourt, Sainte Olle British Cemetery
He grew up in a town that was more medieval than modern. It was situated just southwest of London, and upon attaining the age of 20, he decided that bigger and brighter things were in store for him. The scene that followed is almost stereotypical. A fresh, faced young man…bursting with energy, passion and positivity, watched his home country fade into the distance as he set off to a new land. Then, a few days later he peered over the bow, and through the coastal mist when he saw it. Appearing out of nothingness, was the center of the universe, a mountain range of towers soaring into the sky…it was New York City. Disembarking from the vessel he was consumed by the sea of people and instantly became one of them.
From his sleepy origins, he soon found himself in the epicenter of the epicenter of civilizations. He lived and worked just a block away from Grand Central Station. Acting as a stewart in a hotel, stepping out in the streets he would be bombarded by sounds. Constant. A barrage of noises…never-ending traffic, the buzz of the masses, non-stop, by day, by night. Every corner would act as his virtual Twitter feed with information blasted at him by every direction. There was no way around it. From 1914 to 1915 to 1916 to 1917 he would know every circumstance in France, Belgium or even Russia and Turkey virtually as they happened. This was the age of information where Trans-Atlantic telegraphs could update the other side of the world moments after the event occurred….and all this information first arrived in New York City. It was understandable that a young, ex-pat like Sydney Pink would eventually come to the realization that after so much death and destruction his country needed him.
26 year old Sydney was a portly young man. Weighing in at 160 pounds and reaching the height of 5 ft 6, he was solid. In the spring of 1917, Sydney travelled to Toronto and enlisted with the 10th Regiment also known as the Royal Regiment of Canada. After basic training he proceeded to England and bounced around to the 2nd Reserve Battalion then the 8th Reserve Battalion before being transferred to the 116th in April 1918.
If you put yourself into the boots of young Private Pink, you can imagine the things the young man had seen. Guildford, England of his youth looked like it was still in the 1500s. Then moving to and living in Manhattan when it was the most exciting, celebrated metropolis on earth. Then suddenly finding himself on the edge of Armageddon…watching the most advanced civilizations on earth pounding another into mush. Life and death becoming essentially meaningless…man treated as nothing more precious than the odd bits of trash that nonchalantly get swept into a gutter. And with this perspective, being just one of the bits, he accepted his role, his duty, his need and proceeded forward.
On the 29th of September, after only 136 days serving in France, the stewart from New York City…the man who was more accustomed to refreshing your glass or replacing your napkin was tossed into the meat grinder. Rifle in hand and following the poor lad in front of him, Private Pink waded into the morass. On the approach to the village of Raillencourt on the way to Petit Fontaine, Sydney and his company wandered into a downpour of crisscrossing machine gun fire. They were virtually wiped out to a man. 74 men from the battalion were killed in the action and scores more left wounded, unable to continue. And as he lay wounded, dying the next Company from the 116th eliminated the gunners, merely bypassed the obstacle and moved on…leaving the remains of Private Sydney Pink and his battalion mates forever to rest in the French soil.
Lest we forget