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Wednesday, November 11, 2015
| Cowichan Valley Citizen
Cowichan Remembers Stories for this section were written by historian and columnist T.W. Paterson. For more from him, go to www.twpaterson.com Additional contributors: Jack Bridges, Kevin Rothbauer, and Barb Simpkins, Kaatza Museum. Photo: This grave at Mountainview Cemetery reminds us that many of our veterans are now gone. [KEVIN ROTHBAUER/CITIZEN]
CHRONICLES T.W. Paterson
Remembrance Day
Remembrance Day
Cowichan Valley Citizen
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Wednesday, November 11, 2015
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Canada’s first VC sleeps in foreign soil
of the action — the illustrious, infamous Charge of the Light Brigade, where British cavalry charged the Russian guns at Balaclava in what has become known to history and to literature as the Valley of Death. Gallant, glamourous though it may have been, the charge against an entrenched enemy was suicidal to the point of insanity. Of the 630 cavalrymen who charged, 156 were killed or missing, 134 wounded, 14 taken prisoner. Dunn’s 11th Hussars, which formed the second line of attack, were hard-hit, too, with
...a tribute to our country’s heroes
only 25 survivors. Several times Dunn led his men against those murderous guns, only, finally, withdrawing when their decimated ranks came under fresh fire from the right. That’s when Dunn saw Sgt. Robert Bentley, who’d suffered a lance cut in the neck and a bullet in the calf and whose horse had been severely wounded, being targeted as a straggler by three Russian Hussars. Demonstrating superb horsemanship, Dunn and his trusty steed pirouetted their way through the carnage of dead,
On the 11th Hour of the 11th Day of the 11th Month
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goons) aka the Cherry Pickers. A born cavalryman, Dunn set a high standard for his men and became known as a strict disciplinarian. For all that, his men respected him — seldom the case in an army of rich, privileged and often egocentric officers who lorded it over the lower caste ranks. Dunn was in command of F Troop when his unit sailed for the Crimea to join in the English and French campaign attempting to thwart Russia’s incursion into Turkey. On Oct. 25, 1854, he was in the very thick
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The Charge of the Light Brigade by artist Richard Caton Woodville, Jr. [WIKIMEDIA COMMONS PHOTO]
wounded and terrified riderless horses to reach Bentley’s side and to kill — cut down, as his award citation put its — the three Russians with his custom-made sabre. Because Bentley’s maimed animal was unmanageable, Dunn leapt to the ground, helped the sergeant to mount his own horse then slapped it on its rump to send it running off toward the British lines and safety. This left Dunn afoot, and his attention was immediately drawn to another of his men, Pte. Harvey Levett who’d lost his horse and was being attacked by a Russian Hussar. Again, it was Dunn’s super-sized sabre to the rescue. Both men survived, Dunn to break down in tears when he learned of the devastation of his troop. His “gallantry in the face of the enemy” in going to the aid of Sgt. Bentley and Pte. Levett certainly qualified him for one of the 11 Victoria Crosses that were first awarded for the Crimean War. He was the only officer who participated in the Charge of the Light Brigade to be so honoured. In fact, his heroism on that ill-starred battlefield is believed to have been the inspiration for instituting the VC. His citation, which is almost unbelievably terse given the drama that precipitated it, reads:
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reat Britain’s fabled Victoria Cross has been that nation’s highest award for “gallantry in the face of the enemy” since its creation in 1856 by Queen Victoria following the Crimean War. A total of 1,353 VCs have been awarded over a century and a half, with 94 Canadians (including Duncan’s own Maj. Charles H. Hoey) receiving the honour. Navy pilot Hampton “Hammy” Gray (another British Columbian) was the last Canadian to receive the VC, in 1945; as was that of Hoey’s the previous year, his was awarded posthumously. Our first Canadian VC dates much farther back — all the way back to the Charge of the Light Brigade during the Crimean War. And therein lies the fascinating story of Lieut. Alexander Dunn. At six-feet-three, the blond, mustachioed cavalryman’s extended reach prompted him to commission a sabre several inches longer than that usually crafted by the famous sword firm, Wilkinson’s. As events proved, this was a sound investment. Described as having “cut a glamorous, romantic figure,” the York-born (Toronto-born) fifth son of the receiver general of Upper Canada attended Upper Canada College then Harrow School before, at the age of 19 in 1852, purchasing a commission (the practice of the day) in the 11th Hussars (Prince Albert’s Own Regiment of Light Dra-
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Wednesday, November 11, 2015
Remembrance Day
| Cowichan Valley Citizen
Grave’s location forgotten in abandoned cemetery until 1945 CANADA’S, From Page 21 “For having in the Light Cavalry Charge on the 25th of October, 1854, saved the life of Sergeant Bentley, 11th Hussars, by cutting down two or three Russian Hussars, who were attacking from the rear, and afterwards cutting down a Russian Hussar, who was attacking Private Levett, 11th Hussars.” Ironically, when Alexander Dunn suffered a fatal gunshot wound as commanding officer of the 33rd Regiment of Foot (later the Duke of Wellington’s Rgt.) at Senafe, Eritrea, 14 years later, it wasn’t in the line of duty, but from the accidental discharge of his own fowling piece. So ruled a board of inquiry which rejected rumours that he was murdered by a servant or that he’d committed suicide, and the celebrated hero of Balaclava was buried, alongside six other men of the 33rd Foot, in isolated Senafe Cemetery near the disputed Eritrean-Ethiopian border. His final resting place was forgotten and remained a mystery until 1945 when a British soldier on border patrol with the Eritrean Mounted Police noticed an abandoned cemetery. One grave, marked with a large rock on a grassy slope, caught
An example of a Victoria Cross. [WIKIPEDIA PHOTO] his eye. Incredibly, this grave had been cared for by Italian soldiers during their occupation of Eritrea during the Second World War; as a courtesy, no doubt, to its heroic occupant. Twenty-nine years passed before the British Trade Commission could investigate, an attempt at resto-
ration having had to be suspended for almost another decade because of military activity in the region. Dunn’s grave now receives bi-annual maintenance. Although a policy was established during the First World War not to repatriate Canadian war casualties, in 2004, the 150th
pause and reflect on
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medals which had been sold at auction in 1894. So great was national resentment that the minister of militia authorized Canada’s high commissioner in London to buy them from their new owner. They were returned to Canada in time to be displayed at the Quebec Exhibition. Today, Dunn’s VC is owned by Upper Canada College where he took his early studies and is on loan to the Canadian War Museum, Ottawa. In addition, an article in the Legion Magazine tells, “...A plaque erected in 1966 by the Archaeological and Historical Board stands at the northwest corner of Clarence Square, near the foot of Spadina Avenue, south of King Street in Toronto where Dunn spent his youth. It is headed, ‘Canada’s First Victoria Cross.’” In 2008 the Canadian Government instituted a look-alike Canadian version of the VC, the Canadian Victoria Cross. It, too, is of bronze suspended from a crimson ribbon and bears a lion and crown insignia, with the addition of a fleur-de-lis and “For Valour” in English rather than in Latin as is the case of the British original. With the instituting of the Canadian Victoria Cross the Canadian system of military honours is entirely our own.
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anniversary of his winning the VC, Toronto accountant Brian Patterson started a campaign to bring Dunn’s bones home to a Toronto cemetery. “The plan is complete,” he told the media. “We think the process will cost about $100,000 to have the body exhumed and returned. And we’ve had great cooperation so far from the Eritrean government.” Said Arthur Bishop, son of First World War Canadian flying ace Billy Bishop, and author of a book about the VC: “Our first Victoria Cross has lain too long in a foreign soil to which neither he, nor we, have any real significant attachment. He belongs at home.” In 2009, 141 years after his death, a Canadian detachment of troops serving with the UN in Eritrea undertook to refurbish Dunn’s burial plot and those of the other 33rd Foot soldiers who’d died far from home in the line of duty. Unfortunately, just a year later, Dunn’s grave was said to have been “scavenged” (despite, it seems, those regular attempts at maintenance). Raged Patterson: “It’s [the cemetery] in the middle of nowhere, in an area that’s been fought over two or three times.” Dunn had inadvertently sparked a previous public campaign, this one to reclaim his
On November 11th WE TAKE THE TIME TO HONOUR Canada’s Armed Forces Past and Present
with distinction and courage for Canada. Respect them this Remembrance Day.
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Sharpshooter poet just a little to good In Memoriuam: BROWN, Frank Smith 1893 – Feb. 3, 1915
T
his fascinating tribute to the “Poet of the Pats” appeared in the Times-Colonist, Feb. 3, 2015 Scoutmaster, poet, sharpshooter, Frank Smith Brown went to war at the outset with the first Canadian contingent shipped overseas in 1914. He was a charter member of the newly-formed Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, entering with the rank of sergeant from the militia. What we know about the sergeant today has been presented by the editor of a London literary magazine, T.P.’s Weekly, whose preface to a book of Frank’s soldierly poetry provides the only glimpse we have of this young man’s life and death. Brown met the editor through letters sent by the 22-year-old soldier who was convalescing at the time from a bout of flu in hospital in the Salisbury Plain. Due to his illness, he missed joining his unit as it proceeded to France just before Christmas, 1914. According to the editor, Holbrook Jackson, Brown called at the publication’s Covent Garden office in early January “with a packet of poems under
The name of Frank Smith Brown, the ‘Poet of the Pats’, is memorialized here in the First World War Book of Remembrance in the Peace Tower in Ottawa. [GOVERNMENT OF CANADA PHOTO] his arm”. They met on three or four occasions and Jackson formed a strong impression of the “sturdy, keen-eyed, self-confident, but unassuming...son of Empire”. And he was quite impressed with his work. Jackson published Brown’s slim book of poems under the title Contingent Ditties and Other Soldier Songs of the Great War, later that year. Because he had yet to taste trench life, Frank wrote of the army life he knew. His poetry reflected the spirit of an earlier
imperial age, more of Kipling than of Owen and Brooke. The sergeant was no jingoist but he had a patriotic spirit shared by the early recruits. It might seem quaint today to find Canadian-born soldiers of that time refer to themselves as British and unabashedly state they were fighting for the Empire. Jackson said Brown’s two immediate wishes were to get to the front with his comrades and to have his poems published. “Both wishes have now been gratified,” wrote Jackson, but
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We Remember those who Fought For Our Freedom
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the first was to last only a few hours. Brown went into the trenches near St. Eloi Feb. 3. In his letter to Frank’s parents, Rev. Samuel Gorley and Josephine Brown, in Almonte, Ont., Frank’s commanding officer, Capt. Talbot M. Papineau (great grandson of Lower Canadian rebellion “patriote” leader Louis-Joseph Papineau, and a hero himself who died in 1917 at Passchendaele) wrote glowingly of Frank and described in detail that day. “As you know,” wrote Pap-
ineau, Sgt. Brown “was an expert shot, and he showed at once the most commendable enthusiasm in his work. Indeed, it was this which caused his death. During his first day he fired nearly 80 rounds at the enemy, probably as much as the rest of the Company put together, and undoubtedly attracted the attention of the German sharpshooters to himself. “About 3:30 that same afternoon, he was struck in the head and died instantly and without pain. That evening we reverently buried him behind the firing line...with his feet to a large tree and his head to the enemy. A wooden cross was erected to his memory. Either myself or Corporal Smithers of my Company could direct you to the exact spot.” But that spot was plowed over countless times as the tide of battle passed back and forth in the Ypres Salient and Brown’s remains were never found. The name of the “Poet of the Pats” remains on memorials such as Belgium’s Menen Gate, the Almonte town cenotaph, and in the Book of Remembrances that resides high in Ottawa’s Peace Tower. The book of poems is in my possession (I am David A. Brown of Victoria) but its contents can be accessed from the University of Toronto website.
“As members of this community and this country we thank all the veterans who have made us proud to be Canadians”
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Wednesday, November 11, 2015
Remembrance Day
| Cowichan Valley Citizen
After 70 years, a soldier is finally laid to rest
HONOURING THE LOST
O
files, burial registrar docuranks of the tens of thousands ments, war diaries, maps and of Canada’s servicemen with regimental histories “to create no known graves. an historical profile of the That ended in June 2014 unknown person”. when a Dutch souvenir huntDocumentation rarely is er exploring with his metal enough, unfortunately, which detector turned up human is where science lends a hand. remains on the southern Biological anthropologists bank of the river Maas near Sprang-Capelle and reported study the remains to determine his discovery to the Recovery the deceased’s age and height, and Identification Unit of the their overall state of health Royal Netherlands Army. With and the approximate time decades of experience in dealand cause of death. Dentists ing with exhumed war dead, trained in forensic odontolthey went to work and found ogy take it a step further by several clues to the skeleton’s studying the teeth; this step identity, among them a Canoften proves to be “the primary adian Volunteer Service Medal, identifier allowing a designated a ribbon for a second medal, authority to render a positive the 1939-1943 Star, a silver sigidentification”. net ring embossed in gold with Because the Dutch Recovthe letter “G,” and eight 9mm ery Unit has previously dealt cartridges. with the remains of Canadian Informed of the find, Canservicemen, particularly from ada’s Directorate of History the last war, they had on file and Heritage which is “responthe medical and dental records sible for using historical and not just of Pte. Laubenstein but scientific methods” to deterthose of five of his comrades of mine the identities of Canadian the Lincolns who’d also gone war casualties as they are missing and couldn’t be found found on former battlegrounds after the shooting ceased. around the world, began by checking military personnel See EACH AND EVERY, Page 25
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A member of the Knights of Columbus and a Cadet salute during the annual placing of crosses at the graves of veterans in the cemetery at St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Mill Bay. [KEVIN ROTHBAUER/CITIZEN]
f the 24,525 Canadian soldiers who lost their lives liberating Europe during the Second World War, more than 1,000 of them have no known graves. One of them, until earlier this year, was Pte. Albert Laubenstein who was serving with the Lincoln and Welland Rgt. when he was killed in action in the Netherlands, on Jan. 26, 1945. The 4th Canadian Armoured Division had been tasked with taking Kapelsche Veer Island, a “significant” and well-entrenched German bridgehead. As part of the 10th Infantry Brigade, the Lincolns were among those leading the attack. In the “gruelling” five days of battle (as a Government of Canada press release described them) before the Germans were dislodged, the regiment suffered 183 casualties. Of these, 50, including Pte. Laubenstein, were fatal. Because of the continued fighting, his body was interred in a makeshift grave and duly marked. But, somehow, its exact site became obliterated and Pte. Laubenstein joined the
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‘Each and every man buried...had a personality, a character’ (Only in his case, it appears, was the body initially recovered and buried on-site but the location of the grave was lost.) The Royal Canadian Dental Corps confirmed the Dutch identification of Pte. Laubenstein of whom records showed that he’d had “extensive dental work, including the use of distinctive gold inlays”. This combined use of dental records, historical context and artifacts “helped to reach an unmistakable confirmation” of Pte. Laubenstein who was just three months short of his 30th birthday when he was killed. Born in Saskatoon, Sask., the hockey, football and soccer player left school in Grade 8 then left the family farm to work as a farm labourer before enlisting in the Royal Canadian Artillery in 1940 and serving in Canada before being posted overseas in November 1941. After joining an anti-aircraft artillery unit he again was transferred, in October 1944, to the Infantry Corps. Apparently rebellious, he was sentenced to 21 days without pay for being insolent to a corporal, and, in May 1943, he was court-martialled for selling cigarettes for which he argued in his own defence that his customers
had been civilians not fellow soldiers. As part of his punishment, it would seem, he was kept in the Infantry despite his training as an artilleryman and his openly expressed resentment. Nevertheless, he was assigned to the Rocky Mountain Rangers. As noted, the would-be sheet metal worker was serving with the Lincoln and Welland Rgt. when he was killed during the five-day-long assault on Kapelsche Veer Island. (This personal slant on Pte. Laubenstein was uncovered by Heather Whiteside, a University of Waterloo history student who was selected to participate in the Canadian Battlefields Foundation academic study tour of Europe last May. “His story, at least for me,” she explained, “really emphasized the fact that each and every man buried in the cemeteries we’ve been visiting had a personality, a character, and in many cases, plans for how they wanted to spend their time...back at home after the war.”) As it happened, five of his comrades were missing. The remains of three of those lost soldiers were found by the Dutch Recovery Unit between 1999 and 2002. Ptes. George Barritt, Charles Beaudry and Victor Howey were buried with full military honours at Ber-
gen-Op Zoom Canadian War Cemetery in Noord-Brabant, the Netherlands. With the finding of Pte. Laubenstein, that leaves Ptes. Stanley Stokes and Lorne Watchorn of the Lincolns still unaccounted for — just two of the nearly 28,000 members of Canada’s army, navy and air force who died in the First, Second and Korean wars who have yet to be identified and buried in a known grave! In May, Pte. Albert Laubenstein belatedly joined 968 of his fellow countrymen in the Bergen-Op-Zoom Canadian War Cemetery, about 70 km from where he died. In attendance were his nephew, Glen Laubenstein of Victoria and grandniece Sarah Penton of Winnipeg, along with representatives of the Canadian Armed Forces and the Canadian Government. His funeral coincided with the commemorative celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Netherlands. His deceased mother never had the closure that comes with an official burial, not even the photograph that she’d requested of the army of his grave in 1945. For one more week the Canadian War Museum will continue to highlight the Laubenstein story in a six-month-long exhibit entitled A Century of Canadian Military Dentistry.
Pte. Laubenstein, right, died during the assault on Kapelsche Veer Island. He and a number of his comrades for years had no known grave. [SUBMITTED]
Join me in honouring the men and women who ƐĞůŇĞƐƐůy serve our country in order to protect the freedoms that we, as Canadians, enjoy today.
Lest We Forget!
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AFTER 70 YEARS, From Page 24
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I would like to take a moment to pay tribute to my father-in-law World War 2 Veteran - Arthur Siddals who landed on Juno Beach on D-Day. Still living in his own home & going strong at 93. Thank you “Art” & Thank You to ALL who have served. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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We take this time to remember and give thanks to those who served and are currently serving our country to give us the freedom we have. “Lest We Forget”
Bonnie SIDDALS
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Wednesday, November 11, 2015
Remembrance Day
| Cowichan Valley Citizen
Lady Warriors — women of Lake Cowichan, WWII C
On the homefront, women were encouraged to knit or sew the latest in military fashions for the whole family. It was just one of the many activities women engaged in for the war effort. [T.W. PATERSON COLLECTION]
On November 11th take time to remember those who have fought and continue to fight for our freedom.
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for canning sugar rations and would check local stores for inflationary prices and union label goods. The women lobbied Ottawa to extend rationing to all essential foodstuffs. They also conducted a campaign to extend the vote to all soldiers, regardless of race or birthplace. At the beginning of the war a group of patriotic and energetic women wanted to do knitting as their part in the war effort but were discouraged from forming a Red Cross branch. Eventually, in March 1940, they were registered under the War Charities Act as the Lake Cowichan Knitting Club. There were 42 members and they met once a week to make quantities of knitted articles. They held rummage sales, accepted donations and held bridge parties. They gave money to the Air Supremacy Fund, the Lord Mayor’s Fund and sent blankets to the Red Cross. They sold chocolate bars and lemonade at the roller skating rink every Friday.
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matched [them] dollar for dollar. The committee at large contributed also. By Aug. 22, a plane was sent to the #8 Elementary Flying School in Vancouver. There was to have been a flyover on Nov. 11, but there were engine problems with the plane. The IWA Women’s Auxiliary, who were very involved in the war effort, decided that more could be accomplished by coordinating all the various groups in town. They called it the United Organizations. Two delegates represented each group. Mr. Saywell was the first chairman and Edna Brown was the secretary. They held bi-weekly dances — 30 cents admission. They also began Labour Day Sports, which evolved into Lake Days. The Auxiliary women sent magazines, cigarettes, Christmas presents, cards and letters to local men and women in the services. They canvassed for war bonds, stamps and the Red Cross. They fought to improve the operation of the Wartime Prices and Trade Board Organization. They held an Island-wide campaign
For this illuminating look at the Home Front we’re indebted to Barb Simpkins, curator, Kaatza Station Museum, who presented it in a talk in November 2006. owichan Lake during the war years wasn’t much different from any other small community on the west coast. There was rationing, blackouts, fundraising, knitting and everyone pulling together for the war effort. There were some remarkable differences, however. We raised $8,000 (over $115,000 at the current exchange rate) for an airplane — not every community did that. Youbou and Lake Cowichan wanted to raise funds to purchase a training plane for the Air Supremacy Drive. Over 300 people showed up for the first meeting in June of 1944 at the Youbou Hall. A committee was formed, headed by Dr. Beevor-Potts and Col. Boyd. By July 11, $5,000 had been raised and a week later they were just $200 short of their goal. All Industrial Timber Mill employees were asked to give up one day’s pay and the company
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Wednesday, November 11, 2015
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The original comes from The UBO Bulletin and this article was published in April 1947. The magazine/newsletter was published by BC Forest Products. [CAM CHOUINARD PHOTO]
Rationing was a fact of wartime life LADY, From Page 26 At Christmas they made up parcels of food and knitted comforts for the Cowichan Lake boys in the service. They knitted socks, turtleneck and sleeveless sweaters, mufflers, caps, mittens and 407 quilts. They sent 25 cartons of clothing for bombed-out victims and adopted a prisoner-of-war. By June 1946 it was requested that they wind up their activities and they shortly formed a local branch of the IODE. The ration book contained coupons of various colours to be exchanged for different com-
modities — tea, coffee, meat, butter, sugar and jam. Trading coupons was illegal, but it was frequently done. Certain items disappeared from the shelves. Bananas — you could buy banana flakes — candy bars and chocolate were rare and expensive. There was also a shortage of milk, as it was too expensive to ship from Duncan. Canned milk was used in its place. Gasoline was severely restricted — coupons were issued to all motorists. It was hard to find new tires. In 1941 the community was blacked-out at night — houses had heavy screens and thick
drapery or plywood for all windows. There were tightly fitting black-out covers for car and truck headlights. Citizens gave up aluminum pots and pans to make planes. Bacon fat and bones were used to provide glycerine for explosives. Rag and paper bag drives were held and children saved string and foil. In November 1945, a Victory Show was held at Youbou and, in March 1946, a welcome home banquet was held for 70 return[ed] vets. The music was by the Swingettes and the guest speaker was Maj.-Gen. George Pearkes.
The war influenced every aspect of life, even on the home front. Knitting was just one of the things women were encouraged to do for those serving overseas. [T.W. PATERSON COLLECTION]
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their courage shall be forever remembered
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Wednesday, November 11, 2015
Remembrance Day
| Cowichan Valley Citizen
ISLANDERS SALUTE VETERANS
The Kerry Park Islanders welcome an Honour Guard from the Malahat Legion for their game against Saanich on Nov. 7. [KEVIN ROTHBAUER/CITIZEN]
Jack Bridges remembers how it felt when he was the young man in the photo, heading home from war on another continent. [ANDREA RONDEAU/CITIZEN]
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How it began: Bridges remembers first days JACK BRIDGES SPECIAL TO THE CITIZEN
I “Lest We Forget”
n 1936 you could not buy a job. When a girl left school she either became a teacher or a nurse or did house work. The army paid one dollar a day and the militia paid one dollar per week. This was big money, so I went to the Perth
regiment. They needed bandsmen and I was able to join up. I was 13 years old, but they arranged to have me born six years earlier as they needed bodies. On Sept. 1, 1939 I was sleeping in bed when my brother ran into my room and held up the local newspaper and there, in three inch letters, “Britain
declares war”. It’s hard to remember my feelings; I was scared, I was excited, I wondered what will happen. I went downstairs and had breakfast and then the phone rang: “Put on your uniform and get down to the armouries as fast as you can.” See BOYS, Page 29
Let's not forget....
Kim Johannsen - Realtor and ex-Serviceman
Remembrance day is a time to remember those who have given their lives so that we can enjoy the precious freedoms that we enjoy today. It's easy in our peaceful day to day existence to take for granted these freedoms and it's just as easy to become numb to all the suffering that people regularly face in other less fortunate parts of the world.
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Having served in Canada's Armed Forces prior to settling here in the Cowichan Valley, Kim Johannsen and Rod Macintosh would like to personally remind you to not forget the men and women of our Armed Forces who have served and sacrificed to preserve those freedoms that we hold so dear.
Remembrance Day
Cowichan Valley Citizen
HOW IT BEGAN, From Page 28 I got into my uniform and ran about three blocks to the armouries and there on the road was C company with rifles and fixed bayonets. I ran into the building and grabbed my clarinet and headed back to the road to join the band. We marched down the street and put a guard on the telephone office, the hydro office and the water works, and spent the rest of the morning marching around town playing military music. At 2:30 p.m. our colonel received word from Ottawa to bring the regiment up to strength for active duty. He phoned Dr. Kenner and Dr. Forester and told them they would be needed to look after the medicals for the troops. Most of the boys that were in the militia joined up immediately, but some preferred the navy or air force. I took the test and Dr. Kenner, who was our family doctor, said, “I will pass you, Jack, but Dr. Forester will not, as you can’t see.” The boys came in from the schools, the farms and offices and within a month the regiment was up to strength. If you could type with one finger you were in the orderly room. If you could open a can, you were a cook. If you could ride a bicycle you were a dispatch rider. Eventually everyone found their place. Where do you put 700 boys, where do they sleep? It just happened that a furniture factory went out of busi-
Most of the boys that were in the militia joined up immediately... I took the test and Dr. Kenner, who was our family doctor, said, “I will pass you, Jack, but Dr. Forester will not, as you can’t see.” JACK BRIDGES, veteran
ness and this became their barracks. Straw was dumped and they made their mattresses and now the task started to toughen them up: march, march, march. And what a funny looking army, some with army pants and a fedora, some with civilian pants and an army jacket. Canada was not ready for war and they didn’t have the guns or the uniforms. They trained in a vacant field near the Avon River an eventually their uniforms and equipment arrived. One night a single file of soldiers was spotted going towards the train station. It was supposed to be a secret, but pretty soon one could see the mothers, girlfriends and kids following them and saying goodbye. The Perths went to Niagara for more training and then to Camp Borden. In 1941 they returned to Stratford and attended a church service and what a difference, they were now soldiers. They left for England 833 strong in October and this was the last time my sister and many girls would see their
husbands. In 1941 it was easier to pass the medical and I joined the Royal Canadian regiment. In 1943 I went to chemical warfare in Ottawa and then off to Petewawa camp where I joined the artillery. When I arrived in England I joined 664 Squadron air observation post and found myself with the 4th Canadian armoured division. On the night of May 4, 1945, 25 of us took one side of the Oldenberg airport in Germany. I was an artillery signaller and I was on the 19 set when the cease fire came through at 7:58 in the morning of May 5. About 10 minutes later divisional headquarters came on the air and asked the we find a vacant field and empty all guns. I sent one of our pilots up and we found a vacant field and we emptied the guns of two 25 lb field regiments and one medium regiment. My was was over and I opened up a bottle of wine we had taken from the Oldenberg winery. It wasn’t a good move as it cost me 10 days guard duty. I had joined the army as a private and after five years was still a private. It seems I celebrated too many statutory holidays that the army didn’t know about. I joined the army with a nickel and came out with a nickel. I had spent 95 per cent of my money on wine, women and song and the other five per cent I wasted. I consider my time in the army as an interesting experience and after five years never got a scratch. I would do it all again.
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PLACING A CROSS
A Legion member and a cadet work to place crosses at the graves of veterans in the cemetery at St. Francis Xavier Church in Mill Bay. [KEVIN ROTHBAUER/CITIZEN] 7297059
Boys immediately gathered for march
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Wednesday, November 11, 2015
Remembrance Day
| Cowichan Valley Citizen
CNR engine 6004 (shown in 1943) drew the Continental and was destroyed in the wreck. The Korean War era rail tragedy claimed the lives of soldiers before they even left Canada for the battlefields and embroiled a future Canadian prime minister in a court battle that would help to define his career and would forever change rail regulations. [WIKIPEDIA PHOTO]
Canoe River disaster direct result of war T
o railway history buffs British Columbia’s worst railway disaster is known as the Canoe River train wreck; to lawyers studying Canadian legal precedent, it’s the Canoe River case. Neither sobriquet even hints of the fact that it was the Korean War, then raging, that precipitated this tragedy... November 1950. For the third time in less than half a century, Canada was at war, this time in Korea. This time, it was different only in that it was called a police action; but all the inevitable horrors of human conflict were at full play and all the resources of the Canadian
government were called upon to meet our commitments to the UN. Caught almost flat-footed in peacetime with only a rump of a professional army left from the Second World War, just five years earlier, a call was put out for volunteers. Thousands responded and began training at Camp Shilo, Manitoba, Wainwright, Alberta, and Fort Lewis, Wash. Nov. 21, 1950, 23 officers and 315 men of the 2nd Regiment of the Royal Canadian Horse Artillery were heading from the Prairies to the coast to embark for Korea, all packed into 17-car west-bound Passenger Extra 3538. At mid-morning,
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having crossed into British Columbia on the CNR transcontinental mainline, it approached Canoe River, near Valemount in the Rockies and began to ascend a long, winding curve — as, from the opposite direction, the 11-car Vancouver-Montreal Continental Limited entered the same loop, on a downward grade. As fate would have it, this 180-mile-long stretch of mountainous track was the only part of the CNR mainline in that region not protected by automatic block signals. From a nearby embankment, a forestry worker saw the impending collision and tried to warn the Continental by frantically waving, only to get a friendly wave in return. There was no further warning, no chance even to begin to brake before the locomotives met head-on, killing both engineers and firemen in a screaming meshing of opposing steel and sparks, splintering wood and, worst of all, escaping steam. The locomotive of the troop train was lifted up and over its tender to come down atop the second car, crushing it. The effect on the other wooden passenger coaches was equally catastrophic. Positioned as they had been between heavier steel cars, the resulting effect was not unlike that of their suddenly being squeezed like a concertina. Some cars imploded, some were upended and pitched from the tracks in a screaming of grinding metal and wood and glass and scalding hot steam that seared then froze the flesh in the -18 C temperature. In just seconds, 17 of Canada’s Korean army contingent, one as young as 17,
most of them in their early 20s, were dead or dying (one made it as far as a hospital), 60 more injured. The final toll, besides the four trainmen, was 17 soldiers killed. Killed without ever having made it to Korea. Killed without ever having left Canadian soil. The cars at the head of the train had taken the greatest impact, their wreckage reaching as much as 50 feet high, and described by a survivor as not being recognizable “as anything but a jumble of twisted steel and splintered wood”. In the three hours that it took for a hospital train to arrive from Jasper, Dr. P.S. Kimmett who, with his wife, a nurse, was a passenger on the Continental, took charge. Those of both trains who weren’t injured overcame their initial shock to do what they could in six-inch-deep snow to help those who were hurt but alive with little in the way of medical aids. Injuries of those aboard the express were minor but not so those of the soldiers. Making the sense of horror all the more excruciating were the cries of the injured and the fact that some of the victims had been dismembered and their body parts, some still in uniform, were scattered about — as they discovered when they tried to extricate what they thought to be a victim, or a whole body, from the carnage. Four of those killed were never found, likely consumed in a fiery explosion that occurred the next day. How could it happen? See FUTURE PM, Page 31
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Remembrance Day
Cowichan Valley Citizen
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Wednesday, November 11, 2015
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Future PM takes the case CANOE RIVER, From Page 30 How could two CNR trains have been on the same track at the same time? Who was responsible? Obviously, somebody had to be responsible. Somebody had screwed up and killed 21 men! That somebody had to be punished. Not surprisingly in a bureaucracy such as Canada’s national railway, that someone was at the bottom of the hierarchy: the telegraph dispatcher who’d taken but failed to relay correctly the Kamloops dispatcher’s order that the troop train pull onto a siding. That dispatcher was 22-year-old Alfred John Atherton and his trial for manslaughter began in Prince George six months after the tragedy. The Crown based its case on the fact that Atherton, having been alerted to the eastbound express, was to have relayed the order that the troop train pull over at Cedarside until the track was clear. But he hadn’t done so, according to the eastbound’s conductor. Missing from Atherton’s telegraphic dispatch were the crucial words, “at Cedarside”. So the westbound troop train had carried on westward towards disaster. Enter no less a personage than John Diefenbaker, future Conservative prime minister, then an MP and a practising criminal lawyer. Initially, he declined Atherton’s father, who lived in his constituency and wished to have him serve as his son’s defence counsel. But Diefenbaker was tied up with Parliament, his wife Edna was seriously ill and he wasn’t a member of the British Columbia Bar. As is so often the case, there’s a fascinating story within a story as to how he did become Atherton’s counsel. Years later, he explained the circumstances (with several discrepancies) in his memoir, One Canada. He was in Australia, he wrote, attending a Commonwealth parliamentary meeting when the train wreck occurred, which he read about in the press, and an Australian colleague had suggested that it would make for “a likely case” for him. To which Diefenbaker had replied that he wasn’t qualified to practise law in B.C., thus he was unqualified to become involved. And his thoughts returned to the prospect of rejoining his wife Edna for several days in Hawaii on the way back to Canada. Instead, he received a cable informing him that she’d meet him in Vancouver. There, a second cable awaited him, this one from a doctor that Edna was in a Saskatoon hospital, dangerously ill (with leukemia). She was, in fact, near death by
the time he reached her side. Nevertheless, her thoughts weren’t for herself but for the young railway telegrapher who’d been charged with manslaughter after a calamitous train wreck in British Columbia. She believed that the higher-ups in the CNR were passing the buck for any responsibility and scapegoating young John Atherton. The real issue, as she and many others saw it, was not the so-called incomplete telegram but the fact that those old wooden passenger coaches in which the soldiers were riding had been sandwiched between heavier, stronger coaches of steel, which proved to be a major factor in the resulting human carnage. Couldn’t he, a crack criminal lawyer, help Atherton? Diefenbaker agreed with her but pointed out that joining the Bar in B.C. cost a hefty $1,500. To which she replied that she’d already given her word that he’d take up Atherton’s defence. As it happened, Edna Diefenaker didn’t live to see how the trial unravelled. Diefenbaker’s interviews of Atherton weren’t promising: “Everyone’s hand seemed to be against him.” The CNR, he believed, was railroading its hapless telegrapher. As he put it so colourfully in his memoir, “Atherton had only one passport and that was marked ‘prison.’” He contacted the B.C. Law Society and paid his fee, to learn that he had to pass an “intensive examination” of provincial statutes; if he failed, there’d be a waiting period before he could try again. He needn’t have worried: the examination was almost farcical, challenging at best to a first-year law student — “or even one who wasn’t” — and he was sworn in as a barrister legally licensed to practise in B.C. In Prince George for the preliminary hearing, which was well attended because of the public interest, Diefenbaker found himself up against the deputy attorney-general, Col. Eric Pepler. When Atherton was committed for trial at the Spring Assizes, Diefenbaker arranged a continuation of his bail and began his preparations for the trial in May. He spent weeks studying “the inside and out” of transmissions of railway dispatch messages, a procedure which dated from 1908, until he “knew the rules better than anyone else”. Not only had they been loosely drawn but, in his mind, were so holed that “two teams of horses could have walked through them”. (They would be revised as a result of the wreck.)
Dispatcher Alfred John Atherton was represented in court by none other than future Canadian prime minister John Diefenbaker. [WIKIPEDIA PHOTO]
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Wednesday, November 11, 2015
Remembrance Day
| Cowichan Valley Citizen
Things look dark for the accused FUTURE PM, From Page 31
The Canoe River cairn, erected to the memory of the 17 soldiers who died in the Canoe River train crash in Canoe River, south of Valemount, British Columbia. [WIKIPEDIA PHOTO]
Once in court, Col. Pepler asserted that Atherton’s failure to advise the westbound troop train to pull over at Cedarside was the sole cause of the crash. Atherton, the operator at Red Pass Junction, had handed the order he’d written down to the conductor of the troop train, and the Blue River operator had done the same for the Continental crew. Atherton assured Diefenbaker that he’d included those two vital words, “at Cedarside,” in his order. Tellingly, the Blue River operator was sure that he hadn’t, which explained why the express train thought it had the right-of-way and why the crew of the troop train expected to meet the express at Gosnell, 25 miles west of Cedarside. The collision occurred south of Valemount, less than a mile east of Canoe River station. By that time the single precedent that Diefenbaker had turned up for a previous broken telegraph message was the work of a seagull having dropped a fish on the snow-covered wires! It did help his case that the telegraph wires in the Valemount area had been freshly covered with snow the night before and that there’d been a communications gap several days before the wreck.
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Lockhart Industires would like to thank the local businesses and people whose contributions for a proper PA system to ensure that all attending the Remembrance Day Ceremony in Duncan can hear the service. We are all proud to be given the privilege to help enable this to proceed again this year to pay respect to our veterans attending and those who gave the supreme sacrifice.
Thank you to: • • • • • • • • • •
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as identified by his rank, one who’d served in the First World War, but his manner in court was that of some senior officers who were “superior” not just in rank but in attitude. The case involved 17 killed soldiers yet Pepler was in effect absolving the railway of any culpability by trying to lay the entire blame on young Atherton. Diefenbaker sensed that jurors could see this conflict of loyalties which Pepler was unconsciously reinforcing with his supercilious manner. It was during Pepler’s questioning of a senior CNR official that he struck. This witness admitted that the composition of the train, the placing of steel-framed wooden passenger cars between all-steel cars, had been his department’s doing. (This, despite a 1947 order by the Board of Transport that part-wooden passenger coaches not be placed between steel coaches. As with most regulation, however, there was a loophole: wooden cars with steel underframes didn’t qualify as “wooden cars”. Nevertheless, even the CNR had discontinued using them for regular passenger service, relegating them solely to the transporting of military personnel.)
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If human failure were involved, Diefenbaker contended, it was that of the Kamloops dispatcher for not noticing Atherton’s omission of “at Cedarside” in his repeat order. But Diefenbaker had an ace up his sleeve, one which he never revealed until after he’d retired from law practice. Whenever he had a jury trial, he’d place an agent, in this case an articling law student, in the courtroom to monitor the reactions of the public galleries. He believed their emotions, as revealed by facial expressions and comments, were likely to be those of the jurors who also were ordinary citizens not members of the legal fraternity. In this way he had a key to what he thought the jury to be thinking. He then let Pepler have the stage through the first morning, neither interjecting nor asking questions of the various witnesses. At lunch, his agent informed him that the spectators were mystified by, even indignant at Diefenbaker’s silence. He was supposed to be a top defence lawyer; why didn’t he say something, anything, on Atherton’s behalf? What he’d been doing was studying his opponent. Not only was Pepler a former army officer
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Remembrance Day
Cowichan Valley Citizen
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Wednesday, November 11, 2015
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FRESH FACES AT LONGTIME TRADITION Air and Sea Cadets stand at attention during the ceremony to raise the Poppy Campaign flag at Duncan City Hall on Nov. 1. [KEVIN ROTHBAUER/CITIZEN]
‘Superior’ attitude of prosecutor turns the tide curve that obscured train crews’ view of the what lay ahead, and, within two years, ordered 302 new all-metal passenger cars. Too late for the 21 men who died in the Canoe River train wreck which ultimately proved to be beneficial to Diefenbaker’s legal and political career while going down in Canadian history as a tragic sidelight of the Korean War. Ironically, the RCHA suffered more casualties in this incident than in its first year of action in Korea. A memorial cairn and monument have been erected near the crash site as has a monument at CFB Shilo where a memorial parade is held each year. Because they were on active duty when killed, the names of the 17 servicemen who died at Canoe River are inscribed in the Korea Book of Remembrance, on the Wall of Remembrance in Brampton, Ont., and on the Korea Cairn in Winnipeg’s Brookside Cemetery. However, because they never made it to the Korean war zone, they have not been awarded posthumous Canadian Volunteer Service Medals — an injustice according to one of the survivors who has unsuccessfully campaigned to have the medals awarded. 7298232
For all the horrendous compounding of tragedy caused by those outdated coaches of wood having, literally, accordioned, the CNR manager said he had no qualms; it was Atherton’s fault with his incomplete message to the trainmen. Diefenbaker, sarcastically: “I suppose the reason you put those men in wooden cars with steel cars on either end was so that no matter what they might subsequently find in Korea, they’d also be able to say, ‘Well, we had worse than that in Canada.’” Everything “broke loose,” Diefenbaker recalled. Pepler sputtered, expressed shock: one didn’t say things like that in a B.C. courtroom! The judge was willing to let it pass if defence counsel meant it was a statement not a question. But Diefenbaker said he’d put it to the witness as a question. Both he and His Honour were interrupted by Pepler blurting out that he wanted to make it clear that the Crown wasn’t “concerned about the deaths of a few privates going to Korea”. “Oh, Colonel, you’re not concerned about the killing of a few privates?” snapped
Diefenbaker. It was pure drama on his part, of course, as he knew full well that Pepler had really meant that the Crown’s charge against Atherton dealt with the death of one of the firemen not the deaths of passengers. But the damage was done. That the Crown’s case had been scuttled by Pepler’s outburst was made abundantly clear when one of two jurors who were veterans of the First World War muttered a curse at the attorney-general. Diefenbaker called no witnesses, concentrating instead on cross-examination for the balance of the trial, and reciting the incident of the seagull who’d dropped a fish on the telegraph wires, while taking every opportunity, real and staged, to remind the jury of Pepler’s military career by addressing him as Colonel. In his hour-long charge to the jury Justice McFarlane pointed out that if they believed Atherton’s story that he’d relayed the troop train’s order as he’d received it, an acquittal was justified. In just 40 minutes jurors returned a verdict of not guilty The CNR installed block signals on the fatal stretch of track, realigned the blind
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THINGS LOOK, From Page 32
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