The House & other Arctic musings

We will remember them

The entire population of this town (800 people) every three and a quarter hours, day and night, for more than four years.

I've a talk with one of the High School classes this afternoon, leading up to Remembrance Day tomorrow. And that statement is probably one that I'll throw at them. The Great War saw the deaths of 9.5 million combatants. Nine and a half young men (mostly) killed over the course of four years and three months. Almost 6,000 a day. To put that staggering number into perspective I relate it to where they live, something that they can wrap their heads around.

Imagine everyone in this town killed over the course of three and a quarter hours, and then another town this size three hours later, and then another and another day and night for four years. And then imagine another group of killings at almost that same rate going on at the same time over the same period. Those are the civilian deaths.

Those are the numbers I want them to leave with, to help understand why Remembrance Day is important. But more than that I want them to know some of the stories of those people, and the ones that returned, in many cases broken. To understand that it is not just numbers, and that the Great War was just one of our wars.

Remembrance Day is one of the most significant days of my years, because of my connection to some of those men. But perhaps tomorrow is a better time to re tell some of those stories.

 

More than a pittance

This is an expansion of the thoughts I was trying to express in my Remembrance Day address this morning, through my tears.

Remembrance comes easy for me. I've had family in pretty much every major conflict from the Napoleanic Wars on through to Korea. My Great-great-Grandfather was at Waterloo, and he took a French bayonet through his hand, injuring him permanently. Uncles and cousins were in the Second World War, of course one of them, Clare, gave me my name and his death gave me part of my identity.

My Grandfather was a soldier in the Great War. When I was small I had the keen interest in soldiers and military things that most young boys have. The kind of thing that gets them to draw tanks and planes and bombs. So I pestered my Grandfather to tell me about the war, to tell me about being a soldier.

One time, I asked Grandpa if he had killed anyone. Grandpa kind of paused and looked away. Then he told me that it was what they had to do. He told me about a time that he came upon a German soldier.  Both reached for their grenades, Grandpa his Mills Bomb, the German his potato masher. Grandpa's was on target, landing between the other man's feet, killing him.

We ask our young men and women who go to war to do terrible things for us, and to make terrible sacrifices. They do it at our behest, so we do not have to. War is Hell, my Grandfather knew that as well as any man. But he also knew that sometimes we have to go to war. After the Great War I'm sure my Grandfather hoped and prayed there would never be a need to go to war again, it was after all the "War to end all wars". But when the world found itself at war again, he was at the front of the line trying to go back. He couldn't because of a hernia, but he served at home, and recruited young men and women, knowing full well that they would be making terrible sacrifices and doing terrible things.

We might have success at war, but war itself is a failure. It is our failure to find another way, to resolve a particular conflict, or to stop some group from doing terrible things. Sometimes, unfortunately, in our world, it is a necessity.

Remembrance requires more of us than two minutes of silence once a year.  It requires us to acknowledge constantly the terrible sacrifices we ask others to make for us, and the terrible things we ask them to do on our behalf. It requires us to constantly seek the resolution, and to prepare when we fail at that. It requires us to remember all of the time, what happens when we fail in this world to find peace, and security.

Photo of my grandfather's carving underground near Vimy courtesy of J. Richardson

Missing inaction

Cenotaphs dot our country. Many towns across this country, small and large, have one to mark the sacrifices of young men (and occasionally young women) who died in the major wars we fought in after the Boer War. Sometimes, in small towns that have seen much better days, they sit tucked away, rarely getting much of a glance. Sometimes not much of a glance, but they almost always have someone caring for them, mowing the grass, picking up debris, perhaps replacing an old tattered flag.

On my trip back home to Manitoba this past spring I had a goal to visit two of these cenotaphs, two communities that lie off the beaten path, and on the road to disappearing. Two communities that once thrived and, like pretty much every town across the country, gave up some of their sons to the wars. One was once the home to a man who eventually earned the Victoria Cross, for Austalia.

Dropmore, although it has seen a bit of a resurgence for summer homes for the popular Lake of the Prairies, is hardly a spot on a map these days. Tiny as it might be, its cenotaph contains the names of ten men, all of who gave their lives in the Great War. Two of them, brothers, who followed the same path as my grandfather, joining the 107th and then on to the 16th Battalion, and who were friends of his. Both of them lie in France.

Shellmouth is a little larger, and a little more vibrant. It also gave ten of its sons to the Great War, and another in the Second World War, killed at the end of the Normandy campaign, helping to close the Falaise Gap.

It was later, while I was doing some research about the men whose names appear on these monuments, that I noticed something unusual about one of the names on the Shellmouth Cenotaph. Although all of the other names contain details of the soldier's death, the date of death and his age at the time, Private Frank White's entry just says "Killed in Action", with a blank spot for the details to be added later.

More than 90 years later, (well typically these monuments were erected in the late 1920's so it is probably more like 80 years later), this information remains missing. It is time to fill in that blank.

Francis White was born in Stretten Derbyshire, England on August 19th, 1882. A bricklayer by trade he was living in Shellmouth when he attested. Likely single (his attestation papers list his father back in Derbyshire as next of kin), he followed the route of many young men in the area around where I grew up, he joined the 107th Battalion. The 107th, Glen Campbell's Timberwolves, eventually became a Pioneer batallion in France. Meaning they were a work battalion, building roads and trenches and other such things, often at the front or in battle and under fire. But when they were in England they supplied many men for drafts to other Battalions. In Frank White's case he ended up with the 1st Canadian Mounted Rifles, likely so he could get to France and join the fight.

Despite their name, the 1st CMR were an infantry battalion, giving up their horses for the mud and trenches of Flanders. They fought with distinction throughout the war, including in the hell that was Passchendaele. And in November of 1917 that hell was exactly where Frank White found himself.

On the night of the 1st of November 1917 the 1st Canadian Mounted Rifles went up to the front lines, relieving the 2nd C.M.R., taking over their portion of the line.  Just moving up to the line at Passchendaele was filled with danger. It was a hard slug through a muddy dark landscape. Men slipped off the path into water filled shell holes, the area was constantly shelled and because the area was surrounded on three sides by the enemy, rifle and machine gun bullets continually swept through.

It was incredible work just getting up to the front, but for half of the regiment there would be no rest as they set out that night to capture two German pillboxes, known as Vanity House and Vine Cottage. One company captured Vanity House with little problem, but the others were discovered in the dark and set upon by a larger force. They eventually fell back but at the cost of one officer and eleven men wounded, three men missing and one killed in Action.

Frank White may have been one of those missing or killed in that raid, or he may have been one of the four other men killed the night of the 1st/2nd, either on the trip in or as "Trench Wastage". Even at quiet times men were killed, by snipers, shell fire or mortars. His body has no known grave, and he is one of the 55,000 such men with no known grave listed on the Menin Gate memorial.

And on the cenotaph at Shellmouth. Where it should read:

Pte. Frank White, 1st CMR. Killed in Action, Nov 2nd, 1917, Age 35.

A grave concern

I seem to have a thing for old graves. Especially those that have been somewhat forgotten.

My sister pointed out that part of it stems from an enjoyment of history, mingled with the passion of the stories of individual lives. And I think it is those stories, and a desire that they not be completely forgotten that attracts me.

When I worked in Fort Providence along the mighty MacKenzie River I had the opportunity to contribute to one of those stories, and a small role in connecting one man's grave site with his family. Shortly before I was transferred here I was in conversation with a fellow at the front of the detachment. He pointed off across the road, which was also RCMP property on the bank of the MacKenzie, and asked "Did you know there's an old grave over there?"

I didn't know, so I wandered over and sure enough, tucked into the edge of a small parcel of shrub was the depression of an old grave with the remnants of an old, unmarked, cross laying on top. I've long felt that graves, especially isolated ones, should be marked. We deserve to have our finally resting places noticed. I started working on finding out more about the man that had long laid in that sod.

Information was sketchy.  A few people that I talked to knew bits and snippets of the story, most never even knew it was there.  The basic details that came out was that the grave was that of an American, who fell off a barge or sternwheeler at Mills Lake, down stream from Fort Providence, and drowned. Because of the cost he was buried locally, because he wasn't Catholic he wasn't buried in the local graveyard. It fell to the RCMP member stationed there at the time to bury the man (and depending on who was telling the story the man's dog as well).

My goal was to have enough information to put up a proper headstone and a fence around the grave, but before any of that could be done I was transferred, and I passed the torch to the other members of the detachment, and the community. I never found out if it had been done.

Until recently.  A short time ago I received a message from a friend in Fort Providence letting me know some news on the grave.  Not only had the grave been marked some years ago (thanks to community members and the work of the detachment), but the fellow's daughter was coming up to visit her father's grave for the first time.

As it turned out, the stories I learned had many of the details right, but not all.  The man buried there across from the detachment was not American but a man from Alberta. Robert Lee Wilson was a trucker from Alberta who was on a barge at Mills Lake when he was hit in the head, knocking him into the water. He died in the accident, leaving behind a wife and four children.

The family never got a chance to visit the grave site, and only had a photo of the already deteriorating grave taken in the '70s by an Uncle. Three of Wilson's children passed away, but finally, this summer, Wilson's last surviving daughter got the opportunity to travel north and stand at his grave. Thanks to the community and people of Fort Providence she stood not at an almost forgotten depression in the ground, but at a marked and maintained grave.

And that makes my grave concern all the worthwhile.

You can read an article on the visit here, and listen to two radio interviews here and here.

"And now you die"

The forty men sitting in the field that night knew what was about to happen, at least in the final moments. There was furtive talk about escape, as each passing moment revealed to them their coming doom.

They were no doubt tired, it had been a long two days. Two days earlier most of them were amongst the first wave of men hitting the shores in the Normandy Invasion, D-Day. Most were Royal Winnipeg Rifles, but there was a smattering of men amongst them from other regiments as well. They had fought their way ashore, and established that beachhead, losing friends and comrades beside them.

Then they had fought their way inland, across the Normandy country side, and at Putot-en-Basin, they dug in at the edge of town, along the railway to await the counter attack.  It hit them with a ferocity that overwhelmed them, and the Rifles were nearly wiped out.  Almost three of their four companies were killed, wounded or captured by the attacking 12th Panzer SS, the Hitlerjugend. Unsupported by armour, and harassed by snipers in the village the survivors withdrew under a haze of smoke. 

A determined Canadian Scottish counter attack, this time with tanks and artillery support, beat back the Hitler Youth, and saved the line. By that time, these forty men, some wounded, most exhausted, were being slowly moved back of the forward area. 

At one of the German headquarters their captors fielded a call from a furious Staff Officer. He had just received another group of prisoners and his message was clear, he did not want more prisoners taken. They were sent back regardless, as soon as the guards returned from the previous prisoner transfer.

They were marched down a dirt road in the growing dark. And as they reached the road to Caen a German convoy was moving down the road, but they stopped as they reached the prisoners. The prisoners were made to sit in the field, as the Staff Officer berated the Sergeant leading the guards. Soon the guards, joined by SS soldiers were issued with machine pistols, and closed in on the men.

It was clear what was about to happen and one of the Rifle officers began to try and talk to his captors, others whispered amongst themselves to run for the fields as soon as the shooting started. And then one of their executioners called out in clear English "And now you die".

When the shooting started most in the closest rows were cut down immediately. Some jumped and ran for the crops in the fields surrounding them. Some were killed but four, wounded and scared made it to the standing crop and hid or crawled away. One prisoner, sat motionless, amazingly unscathed. As the shock wore off he dropped down and slowly crawled to the wheat. Amazingly no one saw him.

Five escaped, momentarily, all were soon recaptured, but by less fanatical units, and spent the war in POW camps. Thirty five men died in that field, executed d'hor combat. They were buried in a shallow mass grave, their fate unknown until the end of the war, when the story of that night emerged, and their bodies were recovered. It was over a year before their families learned that they weren't missing, but had in fact been murdered.

Among those men was my cousin. His death, sixty-six years ago today, was but one sacrifice in a war filled with them. But that death has profoundly shaped who I am, at least in part. I grew up with this story, and having been named after him I can not separate myself from it. His history is part of mine, and although I can not imagine what he felt, what he thought, in those final moments, I understand his sacrifice, and his call to service.

And I am forever grateful to him, and hope that I have carried his name well. 

Vimy Day

From one o'clock until five thirty, thousands of men - quiet. The locking ring on our bayonets were a little loose. When the order to "Fix bayonets" went along the line, you'd think there were a thousand bees  coming. You trembled, waiting. -- F. MacGregor, 25th Battalion CEF

Today has been named Vimy Ridge Day by the Canadian Government, after the battle that happened 93 years ago.  It is also marking the end of an era, as the last surviving Canadian soldier from the Canadian Expeditionary Force, John Babcock, died a short while ago.

I can't imagine, as hard as I try, what those men experienced that day. I can't imagine the tension pressed into that dirt trench with hundreds of others, listening to those thousand bees, waiting.  And then the ear splitting barrage opening up seconds later.

It was just like a continuous sheet of lightening, like a prairie fire behind us, and it was utterly dark still, pitch black. You could hear this tremendous swish of the shells overhead and then just a continuous crash along the line.  -- E.S. Russenholt, 44th Battalion CEF

We were dancing a macabre dance as our nerves just vibrated to the thousands of shells and the millions of machine gun bullets that were whizzing over. And I felt that if I had put my finger up I should have touched a ceiling of sound because sound had acquired a new quality, the quality of solidity. -- Gus Sivertz, 2nd Canadian Mounted Rifles, CEF.

I can't imagine throwing yourself into that fray, out of the tenuous safety of the trench, into the maelstrom of steel, mud and fire. Watching friends and comrades killed and wounded.

I could see this one going, that one going, and I'll never forget, there was a chap, his both legs shot off, and there he was on his stumps, and he was still using his gun to go forward. Oh, gee! It was terrible. -- G. Dorman, 2nd Canadian Mounted Rifles, CEF

That's when we lost all the men. We lost over a hundred going from our trench to the first line of the German trench - the machine guns! -- Vic Armstrong, 10th Battalion CEF

And family...

My brother, whom I lost at Vimy, was just a very few feet from me when I lost him actually. He was wounded first and I dropped into the shellhole to give him first aid, and after giving him first aid I left him. Of course I couldn't stay and apparently he raised up in the shellhole to watch me, see where I went, and I heard the shot fired, and heard it land and turned around to see him fall. I got back to him a second time and he was gone, and of course I couldn't stay and I went forward with my troops. But there was always doubt in my mind that in the heat of battle I may have been mistaken, that maybe he hadn't been killed and that probably at some future time he might show up. I always had that on my mind for a long long time. -- A. Farmer, Machine Gun Corps, CEF

And the feelings of finally making their objective, of taking Vimy Ridge. But at such cost.

It was hard to realize that Vimy Ridge had been captured and on schedule. There were no cheers and no gleeful shouts. All ranks look over the great expanse of new country silently. -- H.R.H. Clyne, 29th Battalion CEF

I cannot imagine, but I can be grateful, and remember. Remember their work, their sacrifices, and their loss. And especially grateful for one that made it through that fray.

Just a few lines on this my birthday to let you know I came through the big scrap OK. I haven't time to write much but just want to say how glad I am. Louis came through alright too. Dan Holmes was wounded and I think Stewart McNicol was killed. You will know long before you get this anyway. I truly hope that I will celebrate my next birthday at home with you all. -- Alvin Kines, 16th Battalion CEF, and my Grandfather.

Like the wind.

Some time ago I pointed out the similarities between myself and Paul Gross, the actor/renaissance man who played the fictional Mountie Benton Fraser on Due South, including our devilish good looks. It turns out that I have several connections with another actor who portrayed a Mountie on TV, Tina Keeper. And in the process of this discovery found a fascinating corner of Canadian (and Canadian Olympic) history.

Tina and I are both Manitoba people, of pretty much the same generation (she's the same age as my younger brother).  Like Gross, we both played Mounties, her on TV and me in real life.  And while Benton Fraser was posted to Chicago, Michele Kenidi (Tina Keeper's character) and I were both posted in the Deh Cho in the Northwest Territories. Lynx River may have been a fictional place but it is based on a community in the Deh Cho region, a partner of mine in Fort Providence even helped with the technical advising for the series.

But like my connection with Paul Gross, my biggest link with her is that our grandfather's were both in the Great War. And its a closer connection.  Tina's Grandfather, Joe Keeper and my Grandfather served time in the same regiment, although possibly at different times.  They may have known each other, but they certainly would have known many of the same people.

Joseph Benjamin Keeper attested into the 203rd Battalion and went overseas with them as a Cpl. in 1916, but at some point he moved over to the 107th Battalion. The 107th was the Battalion that my Grandfather attested to, and went overseas with before joining a draft for the 16th (Canadian Scottish) Battalion.

The 107th Battalion was originally conceived to be an aboriginal battalion (indeed it had over 500 native members over the course of the war), but quickly began accepting anyone willing to sign up.  It recruited heavily in my hometown of Roblin, and the surrounding area and some 60 men from there joined up with them.  I was amazed to see so many surnames I recognized, not only from home, but from other places I've been, such as La Ronge.

The 107th, was conceived and started by Lt.-Col. Glenn Campbell, who led it until his death from illness in France. Campbell was a larger than life character from the early days of the Canadian Prairies and Northwest. A fellow, who by rights should be widely known in Canada, but is largely forgotten.  When war broke out be was an Indian Agent in Saskatchewan hence the aboriginal connection for the Battalion. That and one of his wives was Native, and he has a number of Native descendants. 

But back to Joe Keeper.  When the 107th made it to France it was as a Pioneer Battalion (by this time my Grandfather already in France, with the 16th) not an infantry battalion.  The Pioneers were workers, they worked with the engineers and built trenches, and roads, and railways and all manner of works. Lest you thing this was safe work, it was done at the front and in the heat of battle. Imagine digging a new trench while being shot at, rather than shooting back.  Indeed during the Battle of Hill 70, the 107th not only were credited with saving a number of men from the 10th Battalion, but suffered some 300 casualties (killed, missing, wounded and gassed) over three days.

Corporal Keeper was a runner for the Battalion.  Communications, especially in battle, in those days was tenuous at best, and often the only way to communicate between the front and rear areas, or between battalions was by a runner carrying messages (and ammunition and supplies) back and forth. It was a dangerous job. It was also a job that Keeper was made for.  You see, Joe Keeper, was an athlete. More than that he was an Olympian.  In 1911 he set the Canadian record in the 10 mile run, and the following year he was running for Canada at the 1912 Stockholm Olympic Games.

Keeper ran in the 5,000 and 10,000 metre races in those games. But it was the 10,000 metre race that he shone at.  He easily qualified for the final, and in the final finished fourth, the best ever finish for a Canadian in the event. Still. The 1912 games might best be known for the Pentathlon and Decathlon wins by Jim Thorpe, arguably the greatest all round athlete ever. The silver medalist in Keeper's 10,000 metre race was also native. A Hopi by the name of Lewis Tewanima. Tewanima happened to to be a team mate of Jim Thorpe's at the Carlisle Indian School.

Keeper continued his competitive running during the war.  Back of the lines there were often sports days and competitions run. One of his comrades in the battalion was Tom Longboat, arguably one of the more famous Native athletes. Longboat was an also an Olympian, having run in the Marathon of 1908. Longboat collapsed, along with other top runners during that race. In a makeup Marathon later that year he won the race.

The War Diaries of the 107th make mention of several races that Keeper, Longboat and others from the regiment participated in. Keeper racked up several wins in middle distance running (1 mile, 3 mile) beating Longboat and others (to be fair Longboat was a long distance runner). And he also excelled at soldiering, earning the Military Medal at some point of the war.

After the war Joe Keeper returned to his carpentry trade in Winnipeg. Later he joined the Hudson's Bay Company and returned to northern Manitoba. He retired in 1951, and got to enjoy twenty years of retirement before passing away in 1971 at the age of 85.

Burning Bing

This post is dedicated to the memory of John Babcock, the last remaining Canadian soldier of the Great War, who passed away this past week at the age of 109. Babcock joined up as an underage youth, and although he never made it to France, and the horrific battles, he was our last living connection with that part of our history. The last of those voices to fall silent.

"Then in January 1917 we moved up to the Bully Grenay front with snow and frost and the misery of open trenches wet, cold and very dangerous. We used old pails which we called braziers to burn bits of coal in. The coal we got from the slag-heaps at night. One of these slag heaps was on fire and was known as the Burning Bing. Here Jack Bruce and I were together on post and had quite a few experiences with Minnie-werfers, huge trench-mortars, spies, and casualties in our draft". - Alvin Kines

Much of the War Diaries of the 16th Canadian Scottish describe their time around Bully Grenay as "quiet". Quiet, I suppose, would be in the eye of the beholder. For although they weren't involved in any major actions during that time, it was a very dangerous place. Many of my grandfather's stories of the Great War originate from this time and place.

The Battalion had arrived there less than two months after he had joined it in France, and they were initially there on this front for only about a month and a half, with three tours at the trenches during that time, nineteen days at all.  There would be more than a life time of experiences crammed into those quiet nineteen days. Seven men from the regiment would lose their lives in that quiet, a further fifteen would be wounded.

My grandfather's stories from this place ran the gamut from being buried in a funk hole (a pocket in the wall of a trench where men rested and took shelter) by an exploding trench mortar shell, to missing a spy passing through their trench who was caught by the neighbouring battalion and eventually executed in a nearby town.

But perhaps my favourite story involves the visit of the Brigadier General of Grandpa's Brigade, Brig-Gen. Tuxford. In Grandpa's words:

While in the “Burning Bing” area or at least up in front of Bully Grenay, Jack Bruce and I were on duty in the front line together. The corporal was fixing up a periscope out of a piece of mirror when the Brigadier General Tuxford came along. He asked us what the corporal was doing; the corporal was deaf from shell shock. When we told him, Tuxford said, “How do you keep watch”, we said we just looked over the top; which we did at night but not in the daylight as the snipers used to break our periscopes in daytime. Tuxford got up on the firing step and looked over. “My what a fine view you have here,” he said. Jack and I waited to catch his head when it was shot off, but no one apparently saw him.

Thanks to the wealth of information available online these days I can even figure out the exact day this story took place.  Although the War Diaries of the 16th do not provide any detail of Tuxford's visit, the Battalion was only at the Front Line three times at Burning Bing. A search of the 3rd Brigade's War Diary reveals that Tuxford took a tour of the front line, visiting the 16th Battalion on the 19th of February 1917, along with the Acting General Officer Commanding of the I Corps of the British Army, Major General Sir John Capper (who would eventually be instrumental in the development of Tank tactics). Tuxford served with distinction throughout the Great War, including playing a major roll during the first gas attack by the Germans at 2nd Ypres, a battle that forever changed the face of war, introducing the terrible concept of Total War.

Much of my idea of what trench warfare looks like comes from the iconic photos of places like Passchendaele, churned fields of mud, water filled shell holes, and nothing much else.  No buildings are left standing in that image in my mind. But the reality, like most things, was more complex than that. Certainly in the early years of the war, the landscape even around Ypres was much different.  And the trench system did run through towns and cities.  We may think of urban warfare in terms of some of the battles of the Second World War, but it existed in the Great War as well.  Much of the final days of the war played out in Urban areas.

I recently received a book The Battlefields of the First World War by Peter Barton.  The book mostly showcases a number of panorama photos of the Great War, taken by Royal Engineers over the course of the war. It is much more than a picture book however, with an excellent text, quotes from soldiers (mostly Engineers), photos and diagrams of the landscape and abutments of war. It quite simply changed the image of the war that predominated my mind.

At the time I received it I had been forming the idea for a post about Grandpa's time around Burning Bing. So as I flipped through the book, I turned to the section that had photos of the area around Lens, the area where Burning Bing could be found.  Not only was there a photo, but it was taken from directly behind Burning Bing towards the German Lines.

Only I couldn't find the photo in the book, and I was mystified. The map of photos clearly showed it, and the area it covered.  It was then I realized that not all the images are in the book, but some are only included on the accompanying DVD.  And there it was, but it was not a shell torn field before me, but the damaged landscape of a city. Houses, once homes, formed the backdrop to the German front lines, their communication and other trenches snaked through them.

First of all, this is a detail of a trench map from near the time my Grandfather was there (courtesy the McMaster Trench Map Collection). The blue lines, are the Allied trenches, the red German.  Also shown on here is a tunnel that extends far behind the German front lines.  Burning Bing is pretty much dead centre in the map, with a little sap (or dead end trench that extends out from the line) leading out to it. The city behind the British lines is Cité Callone, facing them is the city of Lievin.  The panorama photo was taken from directly behind Burning Bing, towards those rows of houses on the map. As you can see from this, the trench system was a veritable rabbit's warren. Small wonder that soldiers needed guides to get in and out of the front line, especially when you think that looking over the top of the trench to get your bearings often resulted in a sniper's bullet to the head.

Next is an overlap (courtesy of my friend Tighe McManus, a historian and fellow member of the Canadian Expeditionary Force Study Group) of a similar trench map, overlaid on the present day Google Earth image. The area of No Man's Land that extends beyond the camera's lens, to the opposite trenches in the Panorama is now a city park.

And finally the panorama (or rather part of it), looking out over Burning Bing.  It isn't very high resolution, the viewer on the DVD leaves alot to be desired, only opening the images in a small window and not offering much resolution.  But this gives you a general idea.

This is a rather poor composite image of parts of the panorama that I gleaned off the DVD to try and get a better resolved picture. I'm not sure if the dark area on the right is smoke from Burning Bing or just blemishes on the photo.  Perhaps it is the larger pile of rubble to the centre right.

One thing you can see, is just how close these two lines are to each other, a distance of only a couple of hundred metres. In other parts of the line the distance could be much, much closer. The Canadian barbed wire can be seen running about midway in the photo. The German trench, though not really visible, would be between there and the houses, closer to the houses. 

And although its not really visible, rest assured that the location of both trenches was well known to the combatants.  But for me the really startling thing about this photo is the houses. Battered and mere shells to be sure, but standing. A far cry from the flattened landscape of my imagination.  "What a fine view" indeed.

Struck down by the Flu, Part two.

Continued from page one

When the German Triplanes turned back to search for other targets, McLeod did the unexpected. He turned back and started to chase them. It was so out of character for an observer plane, especially one that had just narrowly escaped being shot down, that they didn't watch for him. McLeod chased them until he had the nearest plane in his sights, and then shot it down. It was such an audacious move, that had an allied balloon observer not witnessed it, they wouldn't have gotten credit for it, no one believed McLeod's and Coomb's story.

McLeod, with another observer followed this up with an equally ambitious attack on a well protected German Observation balloon, well back of the line. That was followed up two days later, with a mission to mark an artillery battery so it could be located and destroyed. As they attempted to circle over it they were harassed by the accurate fire of an anti-aircraft battery. So McLeod turned his attention to that, flying through machine gun fire to drop his bombs on the anti-aircraft battery.  While returning to finish the job they shot up a large column of infantry and then went about their business of directing fire at the artillery battery, until it was destroyed.

Granted two weeks leave in London for his exploits ironically almost killed him. The hotel he was staying at was bombed by a Zeppelin, killing almost fifty people and wounding more than twice that. He escaped unharmed and returned to France.

 McLeod, on his return was again paired with a new observer, this one an experienced, decorated airman, Lt. A.W. Hammond.  Their work was increasingly busy, the Germans had launched Operation Michael, a massive offensive designed to use their freed up troops from the surrender of Russia and the collapse of the eastern front. It was their attempt to finish the war before the arrival of large amounts of American doughboys. 

McLeod's squadron flew as many as three missions in a day, artillery targeting, photographic patrols, and bombing runs. And on March 27th, 1918, three weeks shy of his 19th birthday, McLeod started off on the mission that would earn him the Victoria Cross.

McLeod and Hammond left on a bombing mission with six more aircraft, heavily loaded with bombs and extra ammo, at dawn that morning. They unfortunately had to land at another airfield shortly after because of fog, and in the process damaged their landing gear. It took until noon to repair the damage and by that time the others had left for home, the weather not having improved all that much. McLeod and Hammond took off on their mission anyway, alone.

As they headed for their target a Fokker Triplane came out of the clouds below them. Manouvering in for a shot, Hammond shot it out of the sky, but it wasn't alone, and soon they were being swarmed by seven other Triplanes. They managed to shoot down one more Fokker before luck turned against them, or rather the skill of a German Ace, Lt Hans Kirschstein.

Kirschstein came up from below and his machine gun fire not only wounded McLeod three times, and Hammond six times, but ruptured the fuel tank on the FK8, setting the plane on fire. As one more Fokker came in for the kill, Hammond revived and shot it down with his one good arm. It apparently did not crash but left the fight.

Their plane on fire, McLeod had to climb out on to the wing to avoid the flames, and controlled it so as to fan the flames away. The floor below Hammond burned away (remember these planes were mostly fabric over a wooden frame) forcing him to lie along the cockpit. But even in this conditions the two managed a shot at another Triplane coming in for the kill, putting it out of commission, but not before McLeod was wounded two more times. Lt Kirschstein continued his attack and his bullets took out Hammond's gun.  The plane on fire and headed towards the ground he broke off his attack and went looking for other Allied planes, shooting down a Sopwith Camel later that flight.

McLeod continued to try and make across the front line to a safe haven, side slipping to keep the flames away from them, and finally crashed in No Man's Land. Both survived the crash, but Hammond, badly wounded and burnt was incapable of moving. McLeod got up and dragged Hammond away from the burning plane, until their bombs burst in the fire. McLeod was again wounded, this time with shrapnel from his own bombs.

So close to safety, McLeod was wounded yet again, this time by German Snipers. The two badly hurt men then laid in a shell hole until night fall, when they were rescued by soldiers from the South Africa Scottish Regiment. Both "smelt terribly of burnt flesh".

Both McLeod and Hammond faced a long recovery but in September 1918 McLeod had recovered somewhat and was awarded the Victoria Cross by the King (Hammond received a bar to his Military Cross).  He was too weak to attend a reception in his honour though, and later that month returned to Canada to recuperate.

It is an amazing story, but alas its end is sad, and poignantly ironic. Having survived terrible wounds and against terrific odds he didn't escape the Spanish Influenza. The epidemic was also sweeping Canada by the end of the war and McLeod contracted the virus. Still weak, he was unable to fight the virulent disease and died November 6th 1918, five days before the Great War ended.

I'm grateful to the website Canadian Aces and Heroes from whence this information on Alan McLeod comes from. And I'm grateful for Fawn for showing that I actually had three "from"s in the prior sentence, although I'll keep the first one, because my dictionary says that even though whence means "from what place" from whence has been used by reputable writers since the 14th century and is broadly accepted in standard English.

Struck down by the Flu

One of the reasons I continue to be interested in the Great War is not the greater histories, the battles, the politics, the way it shaped the world in ways that are still felt today. Rather it is the individual stories, at turns tragic,  or heroic, at times funny, many times profoundly sad. The Great War chewed up some 9 million soldier's lives, scarring countless others. Millions of civilians also perished. And on its heels came our last great epidemic, the Spanish Influenza. An epidemic that took another 20 million lives worldwide.  Many young men survived the horrors of the war, only to be struck down by a tiny, but deadly pathogen.

There are many ways to count Canadian Victoria Cross recipients. The world, and our citizenship was different at times. Many soldiers serving with Canada were born elsewhere. We were considered British Subjects, rather than Canadian citizens at the time of the Great War. The Department of National Defence, by way of example, in their excellent brochure on the Canadian Victoria Cross only includes men who served in "Canadian" forces. They include in that list, Thomas Ricketts, who earned his VC with the Royal Newfoundland Regiment in 1918, thirty-one years before Newfoundland joined confederation, at a time that it was a separate country in the British Commonwealth.

I like to cast a pretty large net when I think about Canadians that earned the VC. It includes a young man, born in England, who lived a stone's throw from where I grew up (at Shellmouth Manitoba), who moved to Australia shortly before the start of the war. Leonard Keysor earned his VC at Gallipoli with the Australian Expeditionary Force, using his fine baseball skills lobbing live grenades back at the Turkish Forces throwing them at him and his comrades.

Canada's youngest Victoria Cross recipient is not in the DND's brochure. He served in the Royal Flying Corps. Alan Arnett McLeod was born in Stonewall Manitoba and after the war started he tried to enlist, first in the army, then in the Royal Flying Corps.  In both cases he was turned down, he was after all, only 17 years old. But the RFC held out the promise that once he was 18, they would indeed take him. When he turned 18 he quit school, for a different education, how to fly.

He did well, and soon found himself a pilot with the RFC. However once again his age confounded his ambitions, the RFC considered 18 too young for combat. So he was put in an aging plane to help defend Britain against Zeppelin attacks, managing in the process to get shot down by a Zeppelin's gunner.

By late 1917 the war had taken a heavy toll on allied pilots, so they were more than willing to overlook McLeod's youth. His age was changed from 18 to 19 and he was sent to France. Not to become a fighter pilot as he desired though.  Bombers and observers were being chewed up quickly, as they were no match for German fighters. That was were the greatest need for pilots was, and that is where he was sent.

Not content with the important work of observation that he was tasked with, the audacious McLeod took to patrolling behind enemy lines looking for fighters to engage with. Although the FK8 he flew was armed with both a forward machine gun for the pilot and a rear one for the gunner/observor they were no where near as manouverable as the fighter planes, and they frequently got into scrapes. But they also had success to go with their near disasters.

In December 1917, on just his second trip into enemy airspace, they got into a dogfight with 8 Albatross DIII's, sending one down out of control. On another trip they also shot up a large troop concentration, causing considerable damage.

McLeod's reputation for daring do took a major leap forward early in 1918 when he and his gunner at the time, Lt Comber were set upon by three German Triplanes. They managed to keep them at bay as they headed for the front, escaping into Allied territory. The Germans didn't like straying from their side of the line and so they escaped. But then they did the unexpected.

to be continued...