My family members were typical of their generations and backgrounds. They served in the great British and Canadian citizen armies of two world wars, endured the London Blitz, crossed oceans threatened by U-boats and, after final victory, immigrated to new lands. As I grow older, I think of them more and more.
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In January, days after arriving home from Tahiti, I glanced at the Toronto Star. There was a very small ad, about two column inches, for a springtime tour of Canadian battlefields in northwest Europe. I cut out the ad and put it away.
Coming across the clipping a month or so later reminded me that I’d wanted to reacquaint myself with the literature of the First World War – Sassoon, Graves and Blunden. And the Canadian monument at Vimy Ridge, which I'd never seen, had been rededicated in 2007 following a major restoration. Although not a great fan of guided tours, this was to be with a small group and specialist guide. I phoned the travel agency, booked a spot and then burrowed in a box for some family photos and papers.
This is my uncle, then a young captain and later to be Lieut. Col. Wightman Manzer, OBE. The picture was taken before he went overseas in 1916.
Coming across the clipping a month or so later reminded me that I’d wanted to reacquaint myself with the literature of the First World War – Sassoon, Graves and Blunden. And the Canadian monument at Vimy Ridge, which I'd never seen, had been rededicated in 2007 following a major restoration. Although not a great fan of guided tours, this was to be with a small group and specialist guide. I phoned the travel agency, booked a spot and then burrowed in a box for some family photos and papers.
This is my uncle, then a young captain and later to be Lieut. Col. Wightman Manzer, OBE. The picture was taken before he went overseas in 1916.
My uncle served in the 26th (New Brunswick) Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force. He was in the trenches in 1917-18 and was twice gassed in vicious fighting at Hill 70 to the northeast of Vimy.
During the war, as a result of continuing reinforcements to replace losses, the 26th Battalion had a total strength of 5,719. It lost 918 dead, had 2977 non-fatal casualties and gained 21 battle honours. In the war, Canada, then a country of only eight million, lost 66,573 dead.
Before leaving, I read – I’m ashamed to admit – for the first time, my uncle’s many letters from the Front. The crackly old envelopes were marked “On Active Service” and “Passed By Censor”. Here is one, sent to my grandmother.
Handwriting conveys an intimacy that no email can match. Ninety years after the letters were written in the filth of the trenches, it was humbling to have some sense of a young man’s thoughts as he daily faced death. This little electronic travelogue will vanish, but, with his letters, I could feel close to my uncle.
Into my suitcase went Denis Winter’s moving Death’s Men, Soldiers of the Great War. Being a sentimental sod, I also carried a little packet in the haversack normally slung over my shoulder when I travel. The picture below shows the packet’s contents.
In the centre is collar insignia from my grandfather’s Great War uniform. A dentist, he was a captain in the Canadian Army Dental Corps. In the top left-hand corner is one of my Uncle Wightman’s buttons from the 26th Battalion. In the bottom left is a button from my Uncle Bayard’s Second War uniform and, to the right, one of my father’s. Top right-hand is collar insignia from the 226th (Kootenay) Battalion. Some from the 226th were absorbed by the 54th (Kootenay) Battalion, which suffered terrible losses in a trench raid before the main attack on Vimy. My uncle may have been given it as a memento or, quite possibly, picked it up on the battlefield. Anyway, having been born in British Columbia, it seemed appropriate for me to take it back to the Western Front.
I loaded my iPod with songs of the First World War – 'Keep the Home Fires Burning', 'Roses of Picardy' and 'There's a Long, Long Trail a-Winding' – and set off for the airport.
My father was in the British Army from 1939-1945. He would finish the war as a captain – acting major – with the Royal Army Ordnance Corps.
Although not senior, Dad’s wartime work was sufficiently important that he sometimes travelled across the Atlantic on civilian flying boats. This was exclusive stuff. As a child, I was fascinated by his description of the airborne beds and small dining room. I was reminded of this as, for the first time when flying Air Canada, I had a bed, comparatively new on the Atlantic run, not simply the usual, reclining business class chair. A very good meal, a reasonable snooze and I was disembarking at Heathrow.
First stop, other than a quick foray to Foyle’s to raid the bookshelves, was the Imperial War Museum. Having lived in London, I’ve been before, but the exhibits are very good. I also spent a few hours at the National Army Museum in Chelsea.
In 1914-18, British and Empire soldiers departed from south coast ports such as Folkestone and Dover. Our small group took a ferry to Calais and then drove the comparatively short distance up to the old Front. Indeed, the Front was so close it was said that the guns could sometimes be heard in London.
Having been introduced to the Front at Armentières in French Flanders, the Canadians moved into Belgium and Ypres, ‘Wipers’ to the troops. At St. Julien, just to the east of Ypres, the Brooding Canadian Soldier, rifle reversed in mourning, stands at a crossroads.
The inscription reads:
'This column marks the battlefield where 18,000 Canadians on the British left withstood the first German gas attacks on the 22nd-24th of April 1915. 2,000 fell and here lie buried.'
The picture below, looking east to the German line, shows where the gas was unleashed and the Canadians held. Confronted by the first ever use of chlorine gas, the French broke and ran, perhaps understandably, as they had no idea what they were facing or how to deal with it. The surviving Canadians breathed through handkerchiefs soaked in urine and mud, plugged the gap in the line and counterattacked.
The next picture shows the Essex Farm Advanced Dressing Station, also near Ypres. In 1915, Lieut. Col. John McCrae, a Canadian Army doctor, was working here. He dealt with hundreds of gas victims and eventually with a friend killed in the fighting. And it was here, particularly shaken by his friend’s death, that he wrote ‘In Flanders Fields’, surely the most famous of all Canadian poems and known internationally.
‘In Flanders Fields the poppies blow, between the crosses, row on row …'
McCrae died in 1918 and we later visited his grave near Boulogne.
Here is the hotel at Hooge, just east of Ypres where we stayed two nights. The dip between the hotel and the drive is a mine crater. The two roundish objects by the drive are gas projectors (similar to mortars).
Although it looks quaintly antique, the hotel was only built in the 1920s. An old picture shows what the immediate area had looked like.
'The whole place was a corpse, and the mud itself mortified.'Undertones of War, Edmund Blunden.
In his letters home, my uncle largely omits what he is experiencing, because much would be censored anyway and he doesn't want to unnecessarily upset his family. So there is nothing of battle. However, some things do get through. He is amused that my mother, only five, was surprised that he has been living in the remains of a barn and he teases the family about the “large and plentiful” rats in France. He asks for lice powder: "I am not so bad now, but it won't be long before I will be nearly crazy." At one point, he mentions that he has gone nearly five weeks without a bath. Eventually, he bathes outside and, as it's cold, quickly gets into a blissfully clean uniform.
Near the hotel in Hooge is a massive crater from a land mine, blown under the German lines by the British in 1915. It formed this pond. In the distance, you can see what remains of a blockhouse.
At Hooge, the Germans first used flame-throwers against the British. Below are trenches.
The next posting takes me to the Somme and Vimy.
