WW I Sikh soldier buried in Kitchener remembered as 'a fierce soldier,' historian says

A newspaper clipping on Singh's web page from the Canadian Virtual War Memorial shows Singh was taken to McCrae's hospital in July 1916.

If the two men met, it doesn't appear to have been documented.

Laura Coady, the collections and research co-ordinator for Guelph Museums which operates McCrae House, shows McCrae was working at the hospital when Singh was admitted but she could "find no indication that they crossed paths during Private Singh's brief stay."

"Looking through the signatures in across the other medical notes in the file, I did not see anything that I think could passably be considered John McCrae's signature," Coady said in an email. "A quick look through our McCrae records do not have any mention of Private Singh."

While recovering in hospital from his second injury in 1916, Singh contracted tuberculosis and spent about a year and a half in various hospitals in England before being brought back to Canada.

He was taken to the Freeport hospital in Kitchener for treatment, which was a military hospital at the time in 1917. That is where he died on Aug. 27, 1919.

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