The 1st. Battalion And The Battle Of Givenchy 1915

Here I am back at it with my research of the 1st. Battalion.

The Battle of Givenchy was a smaller engagement sandwiched between Festubert in May, and Loos the following September. Originally the attack on June 15th. was to be made by the British 7th. and 51st. Divisions with the Canadian 1st. Division in support. As the plan was developed the Canadians were delegated to take two German strongpoints known as the Duck’s Bill and H3. Supposedly, lessons had been learned at Festubert, and plans were made to address the issues of barbed wire and machine gun nests. Three artillery pieces were secretly moved, and camouflaged, closer to the front line to eliminate machine gun nests. A tunnel dug under the German trenches was packed with explosives in the hope that it would eliminate a large section of the German front line trenches. Lastly an artillery bombardment using high explosive shells was intended to destroy barbed wire.

The Duck's Bill crater in 1919, Library and Archives Canada.

The four companies of the 1st. Battalion were to lead the attack. Two weeks prior their Ross rifles were replaced by Lee-Enfields. By mid afternoon of  July 15th. the Battalion was in place.

Pte. Maurice Henry Brown wrote to his friend Art Wheatley of London on June 19th. (1)

“London may be well proud of her sons; they did everything that could be done in this struggle.

Our beloved Col. Becher (2) lost his life leading them. No one was loved so well as he, but this war seems to be taking our best men.
……..
We knew an attack was to be made, and the 1st. Battalion was honoured with the job. We marched into the trenches at 2 o’clock in the afternoon, and waited till 6. Four four days a terrible bombardment of the enemy’s trenches had taken place. At 5:30 a fierce concentration fire from our guns was turned on them. At one minute to 6 we blew a mine up. This was a signal for the attack. The mine was too near to our trench, and its violence shook our trench all to pieces, killing a number of our men, and the earth which it threw up, coming down, smashed some of our men’s heads beyond recognition. Being a signaller I was kept in the trench.(3)

Well, the boys from Chatham, I believe, started the attack, followed quickly by the London boys. The din was terrific, the struggle terrible. We dared not put our heads over the parapet to see our boys advancing, but it was a brilliant sight. Nearly everybody over at the same time. They soon had the first line cleared of Germans, and then off to the second line, and they had just about reached them when I got mine.

A big shell struck the trench above us. Four were killed and four of us completely buried by six to eight feet of earth. I continued shouting to let them know where I was, but soon went off for lack of fresh air. The next thing I know they had dug me out. I didn’t know what had happened, but my memory returned after a while. I had given myself to my Maker. I did not expect to see any more of this world, but God in His providence had heard your prayers.

I am now in hospital again, just two weeks after my return to the regiment. It was the worst experience I ever had.”

The problem was that two important positions were not taken by the British so that German machine guns were able to play havoc with the attacking Canadians while a counter attack was organized. It was during the German counter attack that Lieutenant Frederick William Campbell earned his posthumous Victoria Cross.

Casulties during the Great War are never exact. According to Sir Max Aitkens Givenchy cost the 1st. Battalion somewhere around 366 killed, wounded, and missing. (4) Included in this total were twenty out of twenty three officers. I suspect that that figure is low. I did a count from the Ministry of Militia's "Official List Of Casulties" from June 13th. to June 30. (5) The organization of these lists is confusing as to dates - so the hell with it - I counted the last two weeks of June to see how it squares with other figures that I have seen.

The breakdown is a follows:
Killed in action and Died of Wounds  107
Wounded 461
Suffering from Shock 32
Ill 8
Gas 1
Missing 5

If the Battalion was at full strength before June 15th. (which is unlikely) that is a casulty rate of well over 50%. Since the Battalion went into a rest area after the 17th. the majority of the casulties would have occured on June 15th. and 16th.




(1) “The London Free Press”, July 6, 1915.
(2)

Canadian Virtual War Memorial

Major Henry Campbell Becher (Jan. 20, 1874-June 15, 1915) was a member of a prominent London family. His father Henry Becher had been mayor of London for one term. At the start of the war he was Lt. Colonel of the 7th. Fusiliers which was London's militia infantry regiment. He was second in command of the 1st. Battalion.

Library and Archives Canada

(3) The British engineers found that water encountered under no man’s land prevented them from tunnelling under their objective. So they got the brilliant idea that increasing the charge would do the job. It resulted in killing some of the Battalion, and exploding the bomb reserves in the Canadian front line. Resulting in a shortage of grenades.

(4) Sir Max Aitkens, "Canada In Flanders: The Story Of The Canadian Expeditionary Force", vol. 1, 1916.
 
(5) Ministry of Militia, " Official List of Casulties to Members of the Canadian Expeditionary Force: compiled to June 30, 1915". Ottawa, 1915.

Wordless Wednesday - The 1st. Battalion Parades

Library & Archives Canada - Salisbury Plains, England 1915

Library & Archives Canada, Salisbury Plains, England 1915

List Of Casualties - 1st. Battalion

The following are six pages from the Militia Ministry's "Official List Of Casualties to Members of the Canadian Expeditionary Force", 1915. The six pages are from February 1915 up to March 2. There are still seven more pages to go. All are for the 1st. Battalion. The volumes where these are taken are in the London Room, London Public Library, London, Ontario. Gradually, I will try to get them all digitalized, and put them online. It will take a while. For now I have used my digital camera so they are not of the best quality. There is no index - so its peck and hunt !

Officers Of The 1st. Battalion

The Regional Room, London Public Library, London, On.

From left to right:


Capt. W.J. Taylor, Capt. Frank Wall, Lt. Col. Henry Campbell Becher, Lt. Walter Chester Butler.


Henry Campbell Becher born in London, Ontario, January 20, 1874 to Henry Becher and Katherine Campbell died June 15, 1915 at Givenchy.

Libary and Archives Canada

I have the attestation papers for Walter Chester Butler. who was wounded at Vimy, but so far little else on the other officers.

Library and Archives Canada

Dating the photo is problematic except that is was definately taken in 1914 either in London before they went to Valcartier or at Valcartier. Since Henry Cambell Becher is identified as a Lt. Col. ( a militia commission) I would bet on London. When he died he was commissioned as a Major in the 1st. Battalion.

Major James Emanuel Hahn

The London Advertiser, August 17, 1914.

James Emanuel Hahn was born in New York City July 30, 1892 to Alfred Hahn and Eugenie Schlossburg. (1) The Hahns’ immigrated to the United States from Germany in 1890, and some time before 1898 to New Hamburg near Kitchener (Berlin at that time), Ontario.


Major James Hahn is a very interesting man, and shows that little has be done by historians researching the men who served in the Great War. Sometimes being distracted by little nags of - “just who is this guy ?”- can result in a goldmine of information. As it turns out he wrote an autobiography in 1954 entitled “ For Action: The Autobiography of a Canadian Industrialist (Clarke, Irwin & Company, 1954)”. I had hoped that there would be some information on the 1st. Battalion; but that was not to be. It turns out that Major Hahn is a good example of not assuming that just because a soldier is on the nominal rolls he served with that battalion.

Library and Archives Canada.

He served with the 1st. Battalion only until the point where the 1st. Division was heading overseas to Britain. Just before leaving he was transferred to Military Intelligence, and served in that capacity on the Western Front through to November, 1918. He took part in all of the major battles of the Canadian Corps with the exception of Vimy Ridge. At that time he was recovering from a serious wound. The first part of his autobiography is an interesting account of the duties and experiences of the junior officers’ intelligence functions, and of the rise of a young officer through army staff appointments. He reached G.S.O. 3 in the Fourth Canadian Division.

It is his roll after the Great War as an industrialist that is the most interesting read. Early involvement in radio, and in 1938 the purchase of the John Inglis Company. This company became the largest manufacturer of Bren guns in the British Commonwealth during the Second World War.


(1) The Hahns’ are found in the 1900 U.S. Census in the Bronx. Just to confuse things James’ year of birth is given here as 1893 while he put 1888 in his attestation papers. I expect that he wanted to be seen as older than he was. By the 1911 Canada Census they are in Stratford, Ontario. James Hahn was a Captain in the Lambton County Militia which also, it seems, included men from Perth County.

Major William Norman Ashplant And The Somme

In a letter to Henry Brinsmead Ashplant published in the “London Free Press” September 23, 1916.


“Referring to the lucky nature of my wound, Major Ashplant says, gee, but twas a near thing for me, another half inch and I’d be pushing daisies. I’ve got the piece of shrapnel, a very nice souvenir from Fritz, and an ugly piece it is, from one of his deadly high explosive 5.9 shells, one of the best shells made. I had only come up from what recently was a German dugout, now our advance battle battalion headquarters, to get a breath of fresh air and a rest. Our artillery and that of the enemy were pounding away at each other, with all calibre guns, but about 10 shells of ours to his one…..I had just laid down on the side of the smashed up trench in my “tin hat”. Two or three of my runners (message carriers), were stretched out resting around, when “plug”. I felt as though half my head had gone.

I up and hopped it around for a second and soon realized what a squeak I had. The velocity of the falling splinter seeming like a brick, compared to what it actually was. One of my runners soon had my field dressing out from my tunic and going down into the dugout, the artillery liaison officer washed off the dirt splash and blood and iodined the wound, after which I strolled down to our front regimental first aid post, and got temporarily fixed up. I was ordered to immediately get to the main dressing station, and get inoculated against tetanus.

You can bet I was feeling nearly all in, having only had four hours sleep in 60, which under the hellish strain of this battlefront is near the limit of a man’s endurance. For 18 solid hours I had been at the bottom of that dugout, reeking with the contaminated atmosphere of those irritating lachrymatory gas of tear shells which Fritz had been liberally dosing this vicinity with, and the place is swarming with big, bluebottle flys which thrive on the dead, laying around half buried.

I had spun off scores of messages and instructions incidental to an adjutant’s duties in the field in direct phone communication with the O.C. (1) companies in the front line and support s and the reserve battalion headquarters in the rear, etc.

I wasted no time getting away, as I was, of course, a walking case. We beat it over and, but had to pick our way through the German artillery barrage. Heavens alive ! I thought the Ypres salient was hot stuff, but it’s got nothing on what is transpiring around here. On getting to the dressing station, I found our brigade major being fixed up with a badly smashed left arm….Fritz’s 5.9’s (great favourites of his) were plowing about close to the right, searching out some of our batteries, which were firing from well-concealed positions, all around our route. I eventually got into the 6th. Australian dressing station and had the serum against tetanus pumped into my right breast. Also was given two steaming cups of cocoa, dosed liberally with some Scotch. Lord, how that did go down ! …………From there with Capt. Cosby(2), who had been hit with shrapnel in the right hand, we were brought on here by an Australian ambulance. I was given a hot bath, a good dinner, and the staff sergeant dressed and readied my scratch, and put me to bed like mother would have done. I certainly was feeling tough.

Next morning I strolled down to watch some German prisoners badly wounded, and being fixed up, Prussian guards, and some big fellows, which the Australians had trimmed up in the morning.

Tis an awful shambles, close to the lines we are holding, and hundreds of Germans and Australians lay there, at present unburied. It’s been an inferno all right, but believe me, Fritz is getting it hot now, and his morale is getting shattered. He is fighting a losing game and his troops are beginning to know, and sooner or later, their army will revolt and turn on their arrogant, besotted, selfish, military leaders, but Germany has to be cleaned from within. ……One of these Germans and X.C.O.(3) speaking a little English, said ‘We did not know what a bombardment was like. Verdun was a picnic to this,’ so I guess we are giving it to him pretty bad.

Fritz has now learned pretty well the art of putting his hands up, and these prisoners are glad to be in our hands. Two big wire cages of prisioners are in close proximity to here. It’s surprising how indifferent you get to what may happen when once in line, but he’s a lucky man who pulls through this war and gets amongst the hot stuff without losing some of his anatomy. I guess I’ll clear from here in a week or so and get on the job again.”




1. O.C. - Officer Commanding
2. I found three Cosby’s - Frederick Lorne Crosby of Pt. Hope, Ontario; Crawford Stuart Cosby of Toronto, Ontario ( a civil engineer); and Norman Weber Cosby of Toronto (also a civil engineer). Take your choice.
3. X.C.O. - guessing here but I think he means former C.O.

“The London Free Press” And William Norman Ashplant

Since Major Ashplant was city engineer at the beginning of the war the local paper showed considerable interest in his career.



“ LIEUT. ASHPLANT SLEPT IN KRUGER’S ROOM IN VRELAND


Lieut. W.N. Ashplant, of London, city engineer and all-around good fellow of this good old English school, is suffering from a badly swollen arm as the result of his inoculation against typhoid by the military doctors. He is an officer of the 18th. Battalion(1), and is just itching to get into active service against the empire’s enemies.


Lieut. Ashplant has seen much service as a soldier and an engineer. When he was a mere lad he wnt out to South Africa. In 1896 with a number of the famous Jameson raiders, who were then out of a job, to take part against the Matabeles(2), who were on one of their periodical rampages. After a time Mr. Ashplant went into the city engineer’s office at Capetown, where he secured much valuable experience. He joined the Cape Artillery as a volunteer, every Englishman going into the army in Africa, as it is necessary and proper to be prepared.


Everybody in 1896 knew the Boer war was coming and, in common with other Britishers, the lieutenant joined the Cape Peninsular Regiment, after having been in the artillery for some time. He did garrison duty during the Boer war and was at Johannesburg, Victoria Capetown, and Port Elizabeth.

SLEPT IN KRUGER’S ROOM

Later, when the war was ended, and Britain had won. Mr. Ashplant was employed in drawing the plans for the Pretoria drainage system, and during that tibe(time) be boarded in the buildings know as the Presidency, which were formerly the home of President Kruger. When Oom Paul died a Dutch lawyer rushed to the woman who kept the boarding house and notified her to get out inside of 21 hours and the remains of the former president were to be brought back to South Africa and were to lie in state in his former home.

Mr. Ashplant occupied the bedroom which had formally been used by Kruger, and he did not propose to give it up unceremoniously. In going over the lease with the woman who conducted the place it was observed that a clause had been scratched out which forbade any person wearing the British uniform to be harboured in the place. This so angered the Britishers that they engaged a lawyer to fight the Dutch claims to the residence, with the result that the boarding lady was offered 500 pounds to vacate and she asked 1,000. The friends of Kruger would not pay this amount and the lady clung to her four year lease. Then the body of Kruger was laid in the old Dutch church, where friends of the late president were able to view his remains.

Altogether Mr. Ashplant is a most interesting man. He has been a splendid city engineer and now that war has broken out he is going to the front to fight side by side with Englishmen, Irishmen and Scotchmen to preserve British liberties. He was on a leave of absence from Nigeria when told that the city engineer’s position in London was vacant and he left England on a few hours’ notice to come to this city.”



“The London Free Press”, December 7, 1914.

1. Actually he enlisted with the 33rd. Battalion, and is found in the 33rd. Battalion’s nominal rolls as a Major. The 33rd. Battalion embarked for Great Britain April 6, 1916 where it was broken up for reinforcements. In July 1916 it was absorbed by the 36th. “Overseas Battalion”, and disbanded July 17, 1917.


2. The link will give you a better understanding of theses events. The newspaper is not at all accurate. Journalists with the “Free Press” at that time rarely let facts get in the way of a good story. Go figure !

Major William Norman Ashplant

William Norman Ashplant was born July 23, 1877 in Haverhill, Suffolk, England, and died on the Somme with the 1st. Battalion on September 22, 1916. His body was never found. He was a civil engineer by trade, and in 1914 city engineer for London, Ontario. Even though he spend only a couple of years in London he still received mention in Michael Baker and Hilary Bates Neary’s (ed.) book, “Fascinating Londoners” (James Lorimer, 2005).


Major Ashplant is a very good example of the men who made up the Canadian Corps (Canadian born becoming a majority in the Corps did not happen until 1918), and assuming that the battalion that they enlisted in would be the battalion that they would serve in in the trenches. He was born in England, and he was a South African War veteran. The attestation papers has him in the 33rd. Battalion upon joining; however, he was in the 1st. Battalion at his death.

Digging to verify information in the attestation papers can (for me at least as a historian) lead to some interesting facts. Major Ashplant lists his father as Henry Brimstead Ashplant living at 807 Waterloo St., London, Ontario. In fact, Henry Brimstead Ashplant is his brother. The brothers’ father was named William.(1)
The brother, for me, is a far more interesting character. Henry Brimstead Ashplant was born November 15, 1863 in Ipswich, Suffolk, England, and died March 12, 1941 in London, Ontario.(2) Henry Ashplant arrived in Canada in 1891(3), and married Alice Hargreaves April 6, 1892 in London, Ontario.(4) He served five times on city council, and was city auditor from 1922 to 1938. Of great interest to me was that he was the one who organized the International Socialist Labour Party in London in 1895. What ! A socialist in London? When did that happen? I thought they were extinct ! Bears further research.




1.England and Wales, Free BMD Birth Index, 1837-1915

2. BMD Birth Index, “The London Free Press“, March 13, 1941.

3. Canada Passenger Lists, 1865-1935

4. Ontario, Canada, Marriages 1801-1926

The 1st. Battalion

Yes I have been researching the 1st. Battalion with the idea of writing a history of this unit. Why? Perhaps the simplest reason is that no history of the 1st. Battalion has ever been written. Mind you, the 18th. Battalion which was recruited from Southwestern Ontario as well also does not have a published history. This somewhat makes them unique of all the other 48 Battalions (1) that saw active service with the Canadian Expeditionary Force during the Great War. One Battalion at a time.

There is more documentation available now than ever before.We will see the 100th. Anniversary of the end of the First World War on November 11, 2018. Library and Archives Canada has released a huge amount of material from attestation papers to unit diaries. There is a great deal more that needs to be made available. John Babcock was the last man standing from all who served in the C.E.F. There are no more remaining.

1st. Battalion, Salisbury, England, 1915. Library and Archives Canada.

Canadian memory of the Great War over the last 90 odd years has been shaped then re-evaluated, and re-evaluated again. Once again historians are looking at the war. Opinions on how the battles changed, and defined Canadian nationalism, has been hotly debated over the last few years.The debate goes on.

What is known is that Canada, and particularly the 1st. Battalion, paid a butcher’s bill from 1915 until November 11, 1918. In a country of 7 to 8 million people Canada enlisted around 620,000 men and women into the Canadian Corps. That figure does not count those who served in Imperial services. The highest percentage of casualties were of course “the poor bloody infantry”.  There was no more dangerous spot to be in than in the infantry.

The 1st. Battalion holds the dubious distinction of being the single most devastated battalion in the Corps. From the spring of 1915 to 1918 6,449 of the rank and file passed through the battalion.(2) If we take battalion strength as 1,000 men that means that the 1st. Battalion was destroyed six times through the war. Of course, a statement like this is not always accurate as the battalion was not ever wiped out in one battle as were the Newfoundlanders. Instead this represents a constant bleeding of manpower as the war dragged on.

When you read an outline of the battalion you can understand why kids tend to fall asleep during history class. There must be more to it than that!

(1) There were many more than 50 battalions recruited; however, Currie resisted  re-organizing the Corps into an Army with more and smaller divisions in favour of larger divisions within the existing Corps. So newer battalions were broken up as reinforcements for the 50 active frontline battalions.
(2) Tim Cook, “Shock Troops: Canadians Fighting The Great War 1917-1918”, Viking Canada 2008, p. 614.

Flags of the 1st. & 18th. Battalions in St. Paul's Cathedral, London, Ontario.

Robert John Edwards

        In the collection of the London Room, London Public Library.


Robert John Edwards #190186 was born on March 2, 1892 in the County of Suffolk, England. He died in London, Ontario January 25, 1977. He was a well know maker of stained glass windows in the London area. He joined the Canadian expeditionary Force on March 22, 1916. At the time he was living in Union, Elgin County, Ontario.

                                     Library and Archives Canada

 “I enlisted on the 22nd. March 1916. My training, what little I had, was in St. Thomas- I had very little in Canada. I had some at the ranges over London west at the Coves. They picked me out there as a sniper, my being a crack shot, and they sent me on a six weeks training course in England. There was 12 men in the group- the crack shots. I joined the 1st. Battalion in the Second Battle of the Somme. That’s where I got my initiation. That was October, 1916.

We would be back of our trenches- behind them. We would hide anywhere - I can remember being in a hollow tree one time. Another time I got up into an old house and I crawled up and sniped from the top of a big square chimney.

Half a mile down there might be another sniper, then we would cover the area facing us. We had telescopic sights right on the rifle. We would be in our cubbyhole all day- maybe all night and move early in the morning. We’d take our food along- whatever we had- and we might sit all day without firing. Of course, when we fired we sort of exposed ourselves to a certain extent, but just a single shot didn’t make much noise because there was firing all along the line.

             1st. Battalion's #2 Scout Platoon Library and Archives Canada

(Vimy Ridge) It was mostly sniping and observation. You’d have a big map and mark out these places on the map and get your locations and distances and then memorize them so you’d really know where you were shooting. As a sniper you’d carry a long distance. In some instances we might even be a few hundred yards behind the lines. We used Lee-Enfields. I took the Ross (1) to France with me but exchanged it for a Lee-Enfield. They (the Rosses) were too big and clumsy for sniping. I remember once, I picked out a German sniping post. I finally got a range on that and it wasn’t very long before they soon disappeared somewhere. They knew that somebody had got track of them so they soon disappeared. I remember all through the winter of 1916, I was in a place called Soucez, right in the Souchez Valley, back of Vimy ridge- I sniped there all that winter in 1916 and the spring of ‘17. The Battalion was in the line, but the line was very quiet, other than the sniping. There was about a dozen snipers in the battalion- three from each company. As a sniper we got out of a lot of fatigues. I’ve seen me going into the line and taking up a position on a step and stay there all day and all night and maybe never fire a shot. We used a telescopic sight on the rifle. We were shooting (the target) may have been three or four hundred yards, but we knew the distance. We had previously checked out the potential targets on a map so we knew the exact distance of each. We spent the winter with the battalion training, shooting, bombing with the Mills bomb and keeping in shape.”(2)


(1) The Ross Rifle was Sir Sam Hugh’s baby. The problem with it was that it tended to jam at absolutely the worst moments in a fire fight, and became nothing more than an expensive club.
(2) Interviews by William G. McKenzie with veterans of the 1st. Battalion in the London Room, London Public Library.

Wordless Wednesday- 1st. Battalion

1st. Battalion at Valcartier 1915 Library and Archives Canada.

Harry William Rowlands

Harry William Rowlands #402392 was born 10 June, 1892 in Birmingham, England. Unfortunately I do not yet have the date when he died. Originally he enlisted in the 34th. Battalion, and then sent to the 1st. Battalion as a reinforcement. Harry Rowlands ran a successful flower shop in London for many years. The interview with Harry Rowlands took place on 27 November, 1974. The cassette tapes of the interview are in the London Room, London Public Library.

“Plugstreet Woods was a noted place. We got the name Plugstreet from the fact that the name of the little town was Ploegsteert which is Flemish and it became Plugstreet to us.

We were at Plugstreet for quite some time- about two or three months- in and out of the trenches. We would put in six or eight days in the trenches and then we would move out to Brigade Reserve, a matter of not more than a couple of miles behind the front lines for a few days. That is where the brigade offices were. You would then go back into the trenches for another six of eight days and then you would be taken out again and sent back to divisional reserve. That was about five or six miles to the rear. You might possibly be able to get a bath there of some sort. There were no tents or huts even there.”

“While we were at Ploegsteert we got word that we were going to parade as close to the trenches as we could, which meant about five miles because Lord Kitchener was coming through. He had been making a survey of the front and they had the troops that were out of the trenches on their resting period lined up for inspection up along a highway as far as you could see. There was a cluster of generals waiting for Kitchener to come down into their section and amongst them was our firebrand, Sam Hughes. (1) He was a firebrand. He got into an argument with this Australian. Sam Hughes, as usual, was boasting that the Canadian troops were the best in the world and the Australian thought his were just as good and to prove it he would show him and started to take off his coat and put up his fists- all this in front of thousands of men. Now this was something that we watched. He was a real firebrand. (2)(3)”

(1) Sir Sam Hughes was Minister of Militia at that time. He was a real character. The center of a whirlwind of motion decisions were often made off the cuff resulting in a great deal of confusion. The English thought that he was mad; however, he did keep them from using  Canadian troops as reinforcements for battered English Battalions.
(2) by 1917-1918 the Canadians and the Australians were certainly the cockiest troops on the Western
Front. If they were bivouacked near each other the British took to putting British troops between them.
(3) Berlin, Ontario was renamed Kitchener after Lord Kitchener.

Photo #1: Attestation Papers, Library and Archives Canada.
Photo #2: King George, Queen Mary and Lord Kitchener inspect Canadian troops on the Salisbury  Plain, 1914. These troops are part of the First Contingent which included the 1st. Battalion. Library and Archives Canada.

Maurice Henry Brown

Henry Maurice Brown #6189 was born on 19th. January, 1894 in Cheltenham, England, and died on the 23rd. January, 1985 in London, Ontario. He was interviewed sometime in the 1970’s (I do not have the exact date of the interview). The cassette tape of the interview is in the London Room of the London Public Library, London, Ontario.

“I was working down at Cook Fitzgerald (attestation papers show him as a shoemaker) when war was declared and I just suddenly went. I didn’t even go back to the factory, I just left. I don’t think I gave notice that I was going, just walked off. There was myself, and Ed Barney( #6175) and another chap in the same boarding house and the son (Roy Curtis #6202) of the landlady. Both of them were killed at Ypres. All three of us went up right then and joined. We were living at 308 Ridout Street, across from the old jail. We went up to the London (Dundas Street) Armory, just walked right in there and offered our services. ‘Aye, you’re not very big, said the recruiting sergeant, but come on in.’ I was 5’4” and weighed 130 at the time. ‘How’s your health?’ First Class, I said, perfect condition. They had me up before the medical officer right away and from there I was sworn in and equipped- the same day. I went home that night and packed up what clothes I had.”

Ypres- April 1915

“Our company was to the left. My platoon was led by Chester Butler (1). I followed him. He and I stuck together all the way- in full day light this was, about 4 o’clock in the afternoon. You could just run for so long- if there was any cover you took it. You just had to take your chance. The ridge was pretty near a mile away so we had to do it in leaps and bounds. Every time an officer blew his whistle another group got up and moved ahead for a few yards. As we got close to the trench- we were a little to the left- the trench we were about to occupy, which had been vacated by the French troops  during the gas attack, we saw a nice little ridge. So we sat  down for a half a minute to catch our breath when a big shell exploded above us and rained shrapnel down on us. One caught me on the right hip and another one in the back. Fortunately the Germans were still using up their old style pre-war ammunition and the shrapnel consisted of round balls- not like the sharp jagged pieces of metal they used later on- and they made a much cleaner wound. So I just dug it out of my leg myself- and was it hot! But Chester- he didn’t have on heavy equipment as I had- busted his kneecap. He said, ‘I think I’ve got it, I don’t think I can move.’ So I said, ‘We’ve got to get out of here Ches. We’d better crawl over and make as small a target as possible’. That’s what we did, we crawled over and I helped yank him into the trench. We were on the left about 25 or 30 feet from the Pilckem Road. There we stayed and before I left this little ridge that thumb I had hold of my rifle at the time a bullet came right across the top of it and flattened it and took that nail clean off. It didn’t hurt, but in a few minutes it was sore. Then I couldn’t handle my rifle. It was a bad day.”



(1).Walter Chester Butler in attestation papers as Lieutenant. Officers were not assigned regimental numbers.
Photo: Library and Archives Canada.

Frank Dickinson

This is the second in a series of interviews done by William G. McKenzie with veterans of the 1st.Battalion in the 1970’s. Tapes of the interviews are in the London Room, London Public Library, London, Ontario.

Frank Dickinson   #6206 was born on 22 May, 1890 in Lancaster, England, and died on 12 March, 1976 in London, Ontario. The interview with Frank Dickinson was in 1975.

“The officers were all militia officers and what they didn’t know abut war would fill a book and what they did know would fill about a line.”

“I never counted myself a soldier. I was only a civilian in uniform doing a job that had to be done.”

“When we dropped anchor we started getting sight seeing boats coming around. I don’t know what they expected, “EEE - Look they talk English!” We should have been saying  “Ugh” or something.”

“Into the trenches with the Leicesters. They were a nice set of chaps. Each one of us was “buddied” with a Leicester. The guy I was buddied with was standing down. The dry out roof was very low- you couldn’t stand up in it. We hadn’t been down very long when all at once there was “rapid fire” on our right and I sat bolt upright and nearly knocked myself out. He (my buddy) reached out and said, ‘It's alright chum, it’s only the Lancasters cleaning their rifles.’ I felt sure there was an attack.”

Ypres

“It’s a sad tale and a glorious tale. Up till then we were going to be backup for the English- building trenches for them. That’s what we found out through the grapevine when we went into Ypres. French (Sir John) is reported to have expressed the opinion  that the Canadians were ‘nothing but a damned armed mob‘. Well the armed mob showed him it could fight!”


Photo: Library and Archives Canada.

Lance Corporal Frederic (Fred) Mason

This is the first in a series of posts based on interviews done in the 1970’s by William G. McKenzie with some surviving members of the 1st. Battalion. The tapes (cassettes) of the interviews are at the London Room, London Public Library, London, Ontario. The following are excerpts from an interview with Frederic Mason, December 9, 1974.

Lance Corporal Frederic (Fred) Mason  #403004 was born on  30th. April, 1893 in Chester, England, and died in London, Ontario, 27 July, 1979. He came to Canada as a Bernardo boy. He enlisted in the 34th. Battalion, and was sent overseas as a replacement. He joined the 1st. Battalion in the summer of 1915. He was wounded twice in 1916.

On being a bomb thrower:

“The English  blew up a German sap about 35 yards in front of our trench at Flaegsteert. They asked for volunteers for bomb throwers so I volunteered for a bomb thrower - I didn’t know a bomb from an egg, but I soon learned. We had to go out into No Man’s Land with one rifleman  - one rifleman and one bomb thrower. This was at night. That was the only time we could go out.”

On Christmas 1915:

“That was the day! When a fellow by the name of Lt. O’Grady. He took us out on a working party - he was pretty well lit. One of the fellows warned him, “There’s a hole Mister O’Grady” just as he stepped into it. ”I found it” was the reply.
(Christmas dinner) was anything but dinner. He made his rounds - he (Lt. O’Grady) wasn’t that far gone- I’ll say that about him. The soup was more like rainwater and we had a Christmas pudding about an inch and a half thick with about half an inch of carbon on top. The tea was no good. We may have had beef - I don’t remember ever seeing any turkey over there. We were right in the trenches. We were on a working party.”

On Sir Sam Hughes:

“Another time, when we were up at Ploegsteert Woods, Sir Sam Hughes came up through the trenches there. A fellow by the name of Cossin (I’m not sure of the spelling) got up on the firing step. Hughes pulls him down and says’ “Get off the firing step you bloody fool. Do you want your brains blown out?” By gosh, inside of a month he had his brains blown out. He was badly wounded - hit in the head- and died in London about 1920.”

On Captain Nelles:

Captain Nelles was orderly officer and I was a lance jack in charge of the listening post. The officer wouldn’t give us any rum. We got an issue of rum every two hours; about a thimble full, maybe an ounce, we called it a thimble full. He wouldn’t give us our rum so I went back to Nelles’s dugout. This was about one or two o’clock in the morning. “Who’s there?” Corporal Mason. “What the hell do you want?”  Lt. Gurney won’t give us any rum for the men. “You go back there and tell Lt. Gurney to give you the rum and if he doesn’t, come back and tell me.” He was one swell guy.





Photo: Attestation paper, Library and Archives Canada,

The Last Survivor Of The Great War Was Lucky To Have Lived So Long

Here is an excellent article by J.L. Granatstein the author of “Canada's Army: Waging War and Keeping the Peace” (2002).

An excerpt from the this article relates to my own interest in the veterans of Southwestern Ontario:

“Consider the case of the 1st Infantry Battalion (from Southwestern Ontario) of the First Canadian Division. Its normal strength was some 900 officers and men, but this one unit saw 6,500 men pass through its ranks. It lost 49 officers and 699 men killed, and 126 officers and 3,055 men wounded. In other words, almost 4,000 men of the 1st Battalion did not return to Canada in one piece, and such numbers likely omit the stress casualties, who woke up screaming for years to come.”

http://news.globaltv.com/world/Canada+last+Great+survivor+lucky+have+lived+long/2600411/story.html

London, Ontario Celebrates Return Of 1st Battalion

From the “London Free Press, April 15, 1919”. The headline read’ “All Preparations Complete for Welcome of 1st Battalion”. The route of the march was Richmond St. to Dundas St. along Dundas to Adelaide St. to Rattle and then to the Heights.

“all bands in the city, including the G.W.V.A. band, the Kiltie Band, McClary’s Band, and the Salvation Army Band will be asked to help make everything joyful.
It is proposed to have the Boy Scouts , the cadets, and the Girl Guides stationed along the route of march.
                                                      View for the children
The civic authorities, in conjunction with the military authorities, will do everything in their power in order that the school children may get the best possible view of the parade.
Military and civil police will act jointly to keep the line of march clear.
Citizens living along  the line of march will be asked to decorate their houses , and those who loan their cars for the use of hospital men will be asked to decorate them.
At the Heights the men will be officially welcomed by Mayor C.R. Sommerville, the council, and representatives of various patriotic and religious organizations.
After this part of the program is concluded they will be dispersed at the dispersal station , after which they will be served with a meal. They will then be free to proceed to their homes.”