Canada's Great War Album Our Memories of the First World War

459 Pages·2014·27.81 MB·English

by  Mark Collin Reid

CANADA’S
GREAT WAR ALBUM
OUR MEMORIES OF
THE FIRST WORLD WAR
F
OREWORD BY
DON NEWMAN
E
DITED BY
MARK COLLIN REID
A
FTERWORD BY
DEBORAH MORRISON
Epigraph
“THE FIRST WORLD WAR WAS SO HORRIBLE, SO APPALLINGLY
SAVAGE, SO VAST AND TERRIBLE, THAT IT AMOUNTED TO MORE
THAN FOUR YEARS OF GHASTLY INDIFFERENCE TO HUMAN
DIGNITY.… OUR BRAINS DON’T LIKE BIG NUMBERS. OUR HEARTS
CAN’T BEAR THE BURDEN. BUT WE CAN CERTAINLY TRY TO
UNDERSTAND THOSE TERRIBLE YEARS AND THAT PIERCING PAIN.
WE CAN BEGIN, I THINK, BY REMEMBERING THAT THOSE WHO
WERE KILLED CALLED THEMSELVES ‘CANADIANS.’ IN THAT
RESPECT, THEY WERE FAMILY.”
—PETER MANSBRIDGE
Dedication
For Dorothy
Contents
Epigraph
Dedication
Foreword, Don Newman Introduction, Mark Collin Reid Timeline
Chapter One Before the Fall, Christopher Moore Chapter Two A Different Kind
of War, Tim Cook Chapter Three Letters from the Front, Charlotte Gray Chapter
Four The Cavalry of the Clouds, Wayne Ralph Chapter Five Seaworthy, Roger
Sarty Chapter Six Hope amid the Madness, Tim Cook Chapter Seven The July
Drive, Dean F. Oliver Chapter Eight Bacilli and Bullets, Suzanne Evans Chapter
Nine Divided on the Home Front, Joan Sangster Chapter Ten Generation Lost,
Kristine Alexander Chapter Eleven Animal Soldiers, Tim Cook and Andrew
Iarocci Chapter Twelve The Conscription Crisis, J. L. Granatstein Chapter
Thirteen Silence and Sacrifice, Michel Litalien Chapter Fourteen Bill Karn’s
War, Jonathan F. Vance Chapter Fifteen Carved in Stone, Eric McGeer Chapter
Sixteen The Art of War, Laura Brandon Chapter Seventeen We Remember, Peter
Mansbridge
Afterword, Deborah Morrison Acknowledgements
Contributors
Canada Remembers
About the Authors
Photo Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
Cavalry and Tanks at Arras, 1918,by Alfred Theodore Joseph Bastien.
Foreword
DON NEWMAN
I
t’s a question that continues to challenge historians, writers, and students: What
is real history? Is it the grand, sweeping narratives that chronicle the major
events that shaped our world? Or is it the multitude of personal tales that
together weave the fabric of humanity’s story?
This ongoing debate was on my mind as I approached Canada’s Great War
Album, published by Canada’s History Society and HarperCollins Canada to
commemorate the one hundredth anniversary of the beginning of the First World
War. I wondered: Will Canada’s Great War Album settle this age-old argument,
or exacerbate it?
On one hand, Canada’s Great War Album offers wonderful accounts, by some
of the country’s best and most respected historians, of Canada’s contributions to
the First World War, describing on the macro scale how the fighting unfolded
and Canada’s role in the conflict.
But Canada’s Great War Album tells us so much more: it brings us personal
accounts of the lives of the Canadians who fought in the trenches, at sea, and in
the air, as well as those who served in nursing stations tending the wounded. It
puts a human face on the wives and children who kept the home fires burning
back in Canada—the family members who constantly feared receiving news
from the front that their loved one had been wounded or killed in action. Their
stories are made all the more poignant by the inclusion of never-before-seen
photos and mementoes from the war.
In 1987, I became the national Remembrance Day broadcaster for CBC
Television. Each November 11, for the next twenty-one years, we broadcast
Remembrance Day ceremonies to the nation. Canadians everywhere were able to
witness the National Act of Remembrance wreath-laying ceremony at the
National War Memorial in Ottawa. And for the first few years of our broadcast,
there were still First World War veterans in attendance. They were elderly, often
frail, and many were in wheelchairs. But despite their advanced years, they came
out, year after year, to honour their fallen comrades.
During those early Remembrance Day broadcasts, I would look at the faces of
those Great War veterans and wonder what memories they were recalling.
Often, my mind would turn to the members of my own family who had served
in the Great War, had survived, but whose service had taken a terrible toll. I
would think of my grandfather Percy Newman, a British Army veteran who
immigrated to Canada after serving in the Boer War. In Winnipeg, he started a
family and ran a successful business until the collapse of the real estate market
with the outbreak of war. At the age of forty-one, he again answered the call of
“King and country” and enlisted in the Great War. He returned from the conflict
wounded both physically and emotionally, ending his days in hospital and
eventually dying without ever knowing any of his grandchildren, or they him.
Alan Arnett McLeod was my mother’s first cousin. A native of Stonewall,
Manitoba, he was only eighteen when he joined his Royal Flying Corps
squadron in France in November 1917. The 2nd lieutenant quickly developed a
reputation as a skilled and fearless pilot and, on March 27, 1918, he needed to be
all of that and more. On that day, he got involved in a dogfight with eight
German planes. During the fight, Alan’s plane was hit and caught fire. Pulling
the plane into a glide, he climbed onto the left wing and managed to guide the
burning aircraft into a crash landing.
Alan was thrown clear of the wreck, but his gunner, Lieutenant A.W.
Hammond, was trapped in the burning cockpit. Despite his injuries, Alan ran
back and pulled Hammond free, dragging him to safety before both men passed
out. For his bravery, Alan was called to Buckingham Palace, where King George
V presented him with the Victoria Cross; Alan Arnett McLeod remains the
youngest Canadian ever to receive the VC.
Alan received a hero’s welcome in Winnipeg after he was sent home to
recover from his injuries. Sadly, because of his weakened condition, in
September 1918 he contracted Spanish flu. He died in Winnipeg on November 6,
1918, five days before the armistice that ended the war.
Reading Canada’s Great War Album triggered these personal memories for
me, and I’m sure the book will have the same effect on others. The book is a
testament to the courage, the pride, the sacrifice, and even the humour that our
relatives—just two or three generations back—displayed when the world seemed
to go mad and dissolve into carnage.
Once you start reading Canada’s Great War Album, it is difficult to put it
down. And it proves that real history is not an either-or proposition. It’s not
grand narratives or personal stories alone. It’s both, woven together—context
and compassion, events and emotions—that put a human face on world-
changing moments.
Unauthorized cameras were prohibited in the trenches, but Jack Turner of O’Leary, Prince Edward Island,
broke the rule. His forbidden photographs, including this one, capture the war to end all wars in ways both
poignant and frightening. Here, members of the German Red Cross carry Canadians wounded during the
Battle of the Canal du Nord in September 1918.
Introduction
MARK COLLIN REID
M
artin O’Connell’s attestation paper tells us many things. He had blue eyes
and light brown hair, and, despite his missing two toes from his left foot, he was
deemed medically fit for service. Standing five feet six inches tall and weighing
153 pounds, he was graced with a “florid” complexion. By all appearances,
O’Connell looked every inch an Irishman. But O’Connell was actually a proud
first-generation Nova Scotian, ready to “do his bit” when the call came for
volunteers.
On March 4, 1916, O’Connell appeared before a recruiter in Truro, Nova
Scotia, and read through a gauntlet of enlistment questions: Are you willing to
be vaccinated? Have you ever served in any military force? Do you understand
the nature and terms of your engagement?
I wonder: Did the latter question give him pause? Did anyone on the home
front really “understand the nature” of the savagery unfolding in Europe?
By the time O’Connell stepped forward to volunteer, Canada had already
suffered thousands of casualties. The patriotic fervour that had marked the early
days of the First World War had cooled, and the torrent of volunteers had slowed
to a trickle. The military tried new tactics to encourage enlistment; one was to
create battalions tied to specific regions, so that friends and kinsmen would sign
up in the belief that they would train and fight together.
Such was the case for the 193rd Battalion (Nova Scotia Highlanders). Formed
in early 1916, the battalion drew its strength from the fishing and farming
communities of northeastern Nova Scotia.
O’Connell, a labourer and a farmer’s son, was the sixty-ninth man to
volunteer with the Highlanders. But soon after his enlistment, life grew
complicated. O’Connell met a woman, Viola Madill, and fell in love. In June
1916, as the couple’s relationship deepened, O’Connell appeared before a
Halifax medical board. Citing the soldier’s two missing toes, the board declared
O’Connell medically unfit and sent him home. Less than two weeks later, that
decision was overturned and O’Connell was ordered to return to duty.