VALENTINE Scott Aloysius Cain was the auspicious-sounding name of a lad from the Maria River who signed up to fight for his country in 1917 and died a year later – a month before the Armistice that helped end the war was signed.
Private Cain’s story is typical of many young men from this area who fought in World War I.
Aged 19, he was officially too young to follow in the footsteps of his older brother Thomas McDonald Cain, who enlisted in the 7th Light Horse Regiment and served under the name “Don”.
The minimum age to enlist without parental consent was 21, but Henry and Isabella Cain would not give Valentine their permission.
So he set off for Sydney and signed up under the name “James Morgan”.
When he returned in uniform, his parents relented – giving him permission to enlist under his real name.
Private Cain set off for Sydney again and embarked with the 4th Battalion, 25th Reinforcements, on 31 October 1917, on board the troopship HMAT Euripides.
He arrived in France on 1 April, 1918.
Sent to fight on the Western Front, he was seriously wounded in action on 20 September 1918, during the Battle of Hargicourt in the Somme region.
Suffering wounds to his right arm and leg from a shell explosion, he died two weeks later, 4 October 2018, at the American 12th General Hospital.
He was 20-years-old.
“Valentine was nursed through his final days by an English nurse,” said Bruce Cain of the Kempsey Family History Group, who is Private Cain’s great nephew.
“He asked her to write a last letter to his mother in Australia, which resulted in the two corresponding for decades until Isabella passed away in the 1950s.”
Private Valentine Scott Aloysius Cain is buried at St Sever Cemetery, Rouen.
His brother Don returned to Australia after the war and died on 5 April 1974, at the age of 85.
By Pauline CAIN
