Lt. Col. Grassie

/ Matthew K Barrett / Leave a comment

Lieutenant Colonel William Grassie
43rd (Cameron Highlanders of Canada) Battalion
Grassie

When I was told that we must take over the line which had been held by a London detachment of 1,000 men, I said, “Well there is one consolation, every man I have is as good as ten of the men who have been holding the line. We will do it.

(Grassie interview, Winnipeg Tribune, 24 Jan 1918) 

A native of Scotland, William Grassie was born on 27 July 1872. He worked in Winnipeg as a real estate broker and was a former member of the 3rd Field Battery and 78th Cameron Highlanders. After Lieutenant Colonel Thomson of the 43rd Battalion was killed on 8 October 1916, Major Grassie assumed command.

Continue reading →

Lt. Col. Holmes

/ Matthew K Barrett / Leave a comment

Lieutenant Colonel W.J.H. Holmes
48th (British Columbia) Battalion
Holmes

He did not salute, so immediately after passing I stopped, turned back and asked him “what’s the matter. Why didn’t you salute?” He swiftly looked at me without taking his hand out of it pocket … His manner appeared to be so insubordinate that I asked him for his paybook … I then ordered him under close arrest.

(Court martial of Pte. Parents, 4 Jan 1919)

William Josiah Hartley Holmes was a graduate of the Royal Military College, a British Columbia land surveyor and first commanding officer of the 102nd Rocky Mountain Rangers. He was born on 28 May 1871 in St. Catherines, Ontario but moved to Victoria with his family. In 1910, Holmes was part of an expedition to explore Crown Mountain. Although he had retired to the reserve militia list in 1912, he was appointed commander of the 48th Battalion after the outbreak of the First World War.

Continue reading →

Lt. Col. Rogers

/ Matthew K Barrett / 2 Comments

Lieutenant Colonel J.B. Rogers, D.S.O., M.C.
3rd (Toronto Regiment) Battalion
JBRogers

Colonel Rogers, as he then was, hazarded his life on many a field, and if he came through the war without being physically disabled none can say that his sojourn on this earth was not cut short by the sacrifices and hardships which trench warfare entailed. He was always in the front line with regiment, and it can truly be said that he was a leader of men who won a priceless heritage.

 (Toronto Globe, 15 Oct 1940, 6)

Joseph Bartlett Rogers was a ten-year member of the Queen’s Own Rifles and an original officer of Lieutenant Colonel Robert Rennie’s 3rd Battalion. He was born in Toronto on 3 March 1886. He rose from the rank of lieutenant to command the 3rd Battalion for 25-months on the front between October 1916 and the armistice. Continue reading →

Lt. Col. MacFarlane

/ Matthew K Barrett / Leave a comment

Lieutenant Colonel R. Alex MacFarlane
58th (Central Ontario) Battalion
Macfarlane

He performed this task with great skill and daring, personally killing two of the enemy. During a subsequent operation he made a reconnaissance forward of his battalion, in which he surprised an enemy machine-gun post; he killed one of the crew and took four other prisoners. Throughout these operations he showed sound judgment, courage and skill.

(MacFarlane, D.S.O. Bar Citation, 11 Jan 1919)

Robert Alexander MacFarlane rose from a lieutenant in the 58th Battalion to command the unit from January 1918 to demobilization. A prewar member of the 77th Regiment, he was born in Montreal on 15 August 1889. MacFarlane was three times wounded in action, five-times mentioned in dispatches and won the Distinguished Service Order and two Bars.

Continue reading →

Lt. Col. Hulme

/ Matthew K Barrett / Leave a comment

Lieutenant Colonel J.H.D. Hulme
62nd (Hulme’s Huskies) Battalion
Hulme

But, in relinquishing the command of the first troops to leave Vancouver, Colonel Hulme, commanding the Sixth, was actually self-sacrificing, and logical. Major McHarg had had war experience in South Africa as a sergeant; Colonel Hulme had no war service at all, and at that time, and to soldiers especially, war service was considered far more essential to command than later, when all manner of business men rose to high military station and rank.

 To let Major McHarg take the first body of men to the front was proper to a logical mind. But it brought unkind thought, and some criticism from the less thoughtful.

(Major J. S. Matthews, Early Vancouver, Volume V, 1945, 136)

John Herbert Donaldson Hulme was a British Columbia lawyer with thirty years of service in the militia. He was born in Belleville, Ontario on 14 July 1867. He had settled in Vancouver in 1904 after travelling west to the Yukon during the gold rush. As the commanding officer of the 6th Regiment, Hulme was expected to lead his militiamen to Valcartier in August 1914 to join the First Contingent. To the surprise of his second-in-command, Hulme appointed Major W. Hart-McHarg to lead the battalion overseas in his stead. Continue reading →

Lt. Col. Ings

/ Matthew K Barrett / Leave a comment

Lieutenant Colonel A.E. Ings
105th (Prince Edward Island Highlanders) Battalion
Ings

What I wish you to arrange is this: Secure an understanding in writing from the Minister of Militia that the 105th shall be kept intact and not be broken up or used as reinforcements for other Regiments at the Front. I want to take the Bn. right to France identically the same as it leaves P.E.I. Ours is the only Province not represented by a Regiment at the front.

 I am not willing to take over a splendid Regiment to England from my own Province, and there be ordered to remain behind with all my senior officers and N.C.O.s and see my men drafted…

(Col. Ings to Premier Mathieson, 21 May 1916)

Albert Ernest Ings was born in Charlestown, Prince Edward Island on 11 May 1866. Ings had been a fourteen-years member of the 34th Light Horse and served as second-in-command of the 6th Canadian Mounted Rifles after the outbreak of war. In December 1915, he received an appointment to raise his own battalion from Prince Edward Island. Feeling ignored in the mobilization of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, P.E.I.  politicians had successfully lobbied for the creation of a separate unit raised from the island province.

Continue reading →

Lt. Col. Fearman

/ Matthew K Barrett / Leave a comment

Lieutenant Colonel G.D. Fearman
120th (City of Hamilton) Battalion
Fearman

This Officer is still suffering from the above debility. In addition the worry incidental to rearrangement of his Unit and its breaking up prevented him taking his previous three weeks leave and rather increased the condition. At present he suffers from insomnia being awake from 1 to 4 almost every morning. His condition persists without definite signs and his general condition has depreciated.

 (Proceedings of a Medical Board, 7 Feb 1917)

Born on 21 August 1867 in Hamilton, Ontario, George Douglas Fearman was an accountant with twenty-six years’ experience in the 13th Royal Regiment. When authorized to raise the 120th Battalion in November 1915, he expressed dissatisfaction with the indifferent attitude of the Government in the poor response to appeals for recruits.

Continue reading →

The Scoundrel

/ Matthew K Barrett / Leave a comment

Lieutenant Colonel W.H. McKinery, D.S.O.
66th (Edmonton Guards) Battalion
McKinery

All rotters are eventually found out and you will be glad to hear that McKinery has been cashiered for using his Battalion funds for his own purposes and we have heard the last of him in the B.E.F.

 (Agar Adamson to Mrs. Mabel Adamson, 2nd Feb 1916, 138)

When William Herbert McKinery enlisted in Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, he claimed to have been born in Waterford, Ireland on 5 April 1878. He also used his father’s first name, John, when filling out the attestation papers. McKinery was actually born on April 5, 1875 in Melbourne, Australia. Believing that he would be rejected as overage, the forty-year old Australian had falsified personal information in order to fight overseas.

Continue reading →

Lt. Col. Mersereau

/ Matthew K Barrett / Leave a comment

Lieutenant Colonel G.W. Mersereau
132nd (North Shore) Battalion
Mersereau

At no time since the 132nd Battalion began to recruit have there been any disturbances of any nature whatsoever, and to say that there has been rioting or other similar disturbances is an utter absurdity and a grave injustice to the young men whom we all should honour.

 (Campbellton Mayor A. A. Andrews to MP Charles Marcil, 16 Feb 1916)

George William Mersereau was a graduate of the University of New Brunswick, an educator for thirty years and provincial inspector of public schools since 1884. He was born in Blackville on 9 July 1852. He had belonged to the 73rd Regiment for twenty-five years until his retirement several years before the First World War. In November 1915, Mersereau was appointed to command the 132nd Battalion mobilized from Chatham.

Continue reading →

Lt. Col. Pratt

/ Matthew K Barrett / 2 Comments

Lieutenant Colonel Arthur C. Pratt, MPP
133rd (Norfolk’s Own) Battalion
Pratt

One of my sergeants put it cleverly when he said that, while the Canadians make the best fighting men in the world, they are not soldiers, and he was right when he said it. The Canadian fighters are citizens. The war was merely an interlude in their citizenry. During the fighting they bore all manner of hardship because they were part of the fighting but when the fighting had ended they unconsciously became citizens again and not amendable to the strict discipline of military life. They wanted to get back to the life to which they belonged.

(Pratt, Toronto Star, 19 March 1919)

Arthur Clarence Pratt was a Conservative member of the Ontario legislature for Norfolk South from 1905 to 1919. He was born 6 February 1871 in Lynedoch, Ontario. In November 1915, he joined with Hal B. Donly, his Liberal opponent from the June 1914 provincial election, to raise the 133rd Battalion from Norfolk County.

Continue reading →