Lt-Col. Low and the
Sinking of HMT Aragon

After the 146th Battalion was broken up in October 1916, Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Adamson Low transferred to the Forestry Corps in France. While managing the overseas Unionist election campaign in December 1917, he was assigned by General Alexander MacDougall to undertake an important mission in the Mediterranean to investigate the quality of Cyprus timber. He neared his destination on board HMT Aragon in dangerous waters off the coast of Egypt on 30 December …

Deciding to take his chances by jumping overboard the sinking ship, Low described the visceral carnage: 

The scene is beyond description. The thoughts that crowded into a man’s mind were whether the ship would make an instant plunge and carry us all down, or the possibilities of the boilers blowing up. As the boats were lowered, one felt then, more than any other time in his life, a great pride in the men of British stock. The men stood under perfect discipline, singing, although it was apparent at this time that the ship had but a few minutes to live.

Over six-hundred passengers, troops and crew, including the ship’s captain, drowned. Low and survivors were picked up by an escort destroyer, HMS Attack, although the threat still lurked beneath the waves. To be concluded in Part 2 …

Order Through Their Eyes: A Graphic History of Hill 70 and Canada’s First World War