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McLean, Daniel [also known as McQuillan, Allan Armstrong], enlisted at Quebec City, Quebec, formerly from Paisley, Scotland. Occupation: Bookkeeper. Military Service: Reg. No. 22936, 12 Bn., transferred to PPCLI. Attestation Papers. Diary Reference: “Dan McLean hit in the stomach,” 2: 9 Jan ’16; “Dan McLean died this morning, buried in the afternoon. No coffin – just wrapped in a blanket. Seems to be the custom,” 2:10 Jan ’16. According to Hodder-Williams, 255, Pte. McLean was wounded 1 March 1915 and died of wounds received near Dranoutre on 9 January 1916.
Additional Biographical Information:
Although there was no mention of Dan McLean’s death in the war diary of the PPCLI for 10 January 1916, he was well known in the regiment. Pte. Daniel McLean, Reg. No. 22936, whose real name was Allan Armstrong McQuillan, was a book keeper prior to enlisting with the 12 Bn. in September 1914. Transferred to the PPCLI in February 1915, he was wounded a month later, but recovered to fight at the 2nd Battle of Ypres and the Battle of Frezenburg. After that he had a number of field punishments for drunkenness. He was shot by the enemy while on a work party driving posts and stringing wire entanglements on the evening of January 10 and died early the following morning of his injuries. He was only 35 years of age. Sydney Bruneau, Q.C. wrote of “this best-loved” man in the regiment “for all his wild ways … Daniel McLean had endured the shelling at Ypres and had done his full duty in the trenches in those early May days – when the regiment had faced annihilation, only to perish on a fatigue party that had done no useful work and that should never have been ordered. I attended the brief funeral service and saw my old friend laid away in a blanket, the bottle bearing his name laid at his feet. For all his noise and drunkenness the regiment would be poorer for the loss of his brilliant wit and steadfast sense of duty in the line when he was safe from the temptations of life. But one could not linger over such instances. Death was common place in those days. The best men would be mowed down and the war must go on as if nothing happened.” (Newman, Stephen K., With the Patricia’s In Flanders 1914-1918 (Saanichton, B.C.: Bellewaerde House Publishing, 2000), 140, 147.
Date of Death: 10 January 1916. See casualty details, Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Buried at Dranoutre Military Cemetery, 11.5 km south of Ieper (Ypres), West Flanders, Belgium. Grave Reference: I.A.6.
