Memory and Valour Podcast:

Battle of the Somme, Canadian history, Edmonton History, Vimy Ridge, western front, ww1, ww1 history

A Corner of Some Foreign Field: The Poets of the First World War

Who reads the burial service when the chaplain isn’t there? On 2 May 1915, near Essex Farm on the Yser Canal, the answer was a doctor named John McCrae. The poem he wrote the next day, “In Flanders Fields,” became the most famous poem of the First World War and the reason we wear a poppy every November.

A sepia-toned portrait of a young soldier, accompanied by the poem 'In Flanders Fields' by John McCrae. The poem reflects on the themes of war, loss, and remembrance.

But McCrae was not a poet by trade, and neither were most of the people in this episode. This is a story about ordinary people who found that the only language equal to what they had seen was one they never expected to use.

A black and white photograph of a young man with wavy hair, dressed in a formal suit, sitting at a table with a stack of books. The image is captioned 'Rupert Brooke 1887 - 1915'.

We start with the three competing accounts of how McCrae’s fifteen lines were written, and why the tidy version is probably wrong. Then we meet Rudyard Kipling, who got his teenage son a commission, lost him at Loos, and spent the rest of his life searching, and we look at what his money and connections could and could not buy.

Cover of 'Good-bye to All That', an autobiography by Robert Graves, published in 1929, featuring a portrait of the author.
Black and white portrait of a man with glasses and a mustache, resting his chin on his hand, wearing a suit and tie.
Rudyard Kipling
A sepia-toned portrait of a young soldier in military uniform wearing a hat, looking directly at the camera.
Sigfried Sassoon

We follow Siegfried Sassoon, the decorated officer who publicly declared himself finished with the war, and Robert Graves, the friend who helped keep him out of a court martial, and you can hear both men speak in rare recordings.

We spend time with Wilfred Owen and Isaac Rosenberg, and with the writers who came at the war sideways: J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Canadians Will Bird and Charles Yale Harrison.

Black and white photograph of a soldier in uniform, seated and holding a helmet, with the title 'GHOSTS HAVE WARM HANDS' and the author's name 'by Will R. Bird' on the left side.
A historical newspaper article featuring a portrait of Charles Yate Harrison, discussing the experiences of soldiers in a front-line trench during war.
A man in a suit and tie holds a pipe, puffing out steam, with a bookshelf and framed pictures in the background.
C.S. Lewis
Portrait of a man with a mustache in a suit, above a historically referenced poem written in a handwritten style.
Wilfred Owen
Cover of 'The Chronicles of Narnia' by C. S. Lewis, featuring a winged horse soaring through a mountainous landscape.
Book cover of 'Isaac Rosenberg: The Making of a Great War Poet' by Jean Moorcroft Wilson, featuring a sepia-toned photograph of a soldier.
Three black and white portraits of J.R.R. Tolkien; one shows him smiling in later years, the second is a younger profile, and the third depicts him in military uniform.
J.R.R. Tolkien through the years

And we come home to Canada, to Canon Frederick George Scott and to Robert T. Anderson, the Edmonton fireman and cavalry trooper who published Troopers in France in 1932. According to University of Alberta researcher Sam Hamilton, only 21 of 98 Canadian poets who published war verse had actually served.

Portrait of a man with a mustache wearing a suit, set in an oval frame.
Robert T. Anderson
A historical portrait of a soldier in military uniform, seated with a sword, titled 'The Great War as I Saw It' at the top.

Featuring audio of Leonard Cohen, Michael Caine, Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves and Rudyard Kipling.

A black and white portrait of an elderly man in a stylish double-breasted suit and fedora, standing against a window with a contemplative expression.
Leonard Cohen

Where Memory Endures, Valour Lives On.

Show notes:

Books and official histories. G.W.L. Nicholson, Official History of the Canadian Army in the First World War: Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914-1919 (Second Ypres, Vimy Ridge, and Canon F.G. Scott’s chaplaincy). John McCrae, In Flanders Fields and Other Poems, with an essay by Sir Andrew Macphail (Putnam, 1919). Siegfried Sassoon, Memoirs of an Infantry Officer (1930). Robert Graves, Good-Bye to All That (1929). C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy (1955). J.R.R. Tolkien, Foreword to The Lord of the Rings, and his published letters. Rudyard Kipling, The Graves of the Fallen, and Kipling, The Irish Guards in the Great War. Will Bird, And We Go On (1930) and Ghosts Have Warm Hands (1968). Charles Yale Harrison, Generals Die in Bed (1930). Robert T. Anderson, Troopers in France (1932).

Archival records. Library and Archives Canada: Circumstances of Death card for Lieutenant Alexis Hannum Helmer, 1st Brigade, Canadian Field Artillery. The London Gazette, Supplement of 27 July 1916 (Sassoon’s Military Cross). Commonwealth War Graves Commission: records and archive pages on John Kipling, Rosenberg, and Kipling’s inscriptions.

Canadian sources. Veterans Affairs Canada. The Canadian Encyclopedia, entries on John McCrae and Charles Yale Harrison. Historica Canada. The Clan MacRae Society of Canada page on “In Flanders Fields.” The CEF Research Group. The Canadian Great War Project, service records for F.G. Scott and Will Bird. CBC Nova Scotia feature on Will Bird. ABC BookWorld and Representative Poetry Online, for Robert T. Anderson’s books. Sam Hamilton, “Canadian First World War Poetry Monographs, 1914-1918: A Bibliography,” University of Alberta Education and Research Archive.

British and international sources. The Kipling Society, notes on “My Boy Jack.” The Western Front Association: “Newly discovered letters reveal Rudyard Kipling’s search for his son” (October 2025), and the 2026 article on Tolkien’s brother officers. Fantastic Writers and the Great War (Kipling and C.S. Lewis). HistoryNet, on the policy against repatriating British war dead. Imperial War Museums and the Royal British Legion, on the origins of the poppy appeal. The British Library, on Sassoon’s drafts and Owen’s poems. The Wilfred Owen Association. The Oxford First World War Poetry Digital Archive. The Poetry Foundation and Poetry magazine’s archive. The Tolkien Estate biography and the Tolkien Society timeline. EBSCO Research Starters, on the Inklings. The War Poets Association. Christian History Institute. Napier University Library, on The Hydra. The Evening Standard, 12 April 2012, on Sassoon’s Military Cross. Lord Ashcroft’s article on Binyon’s “For the Fallen” (Daily Express, 2018). History.com.

Audio. Leonard Cohen, “In Flanders Fields,” Royal Canadian Legion recording. Michael Caine reading Kipling’s “If.” Siegfried Sassoon reading “The Dug-Out” and “Everyone Sang,” from the early 1950s recordings made by Dennis Silk. Robert Graves, 1965 interview with Malcolm Muggeridge. Rudyard Kipling, speech to the Royal Society of Literature on Canadian writers and poets, 1930s.

A note on sourcing: no quotations are invented or attributed to named individuals in this episode. Where sources disagree, the episode says so.

Canadian history, western front, ww1, ww1 history

The Wall That Wasn’t: The Hindenberg Line

https://open.spotify.com/episode/5Nml7n7HEDFSWXGhyHiYsj?si=AEGxHiUpThu9DlwQSCJCUw

A vintage map illustrating the military situation in Northern France, featuring various towns, roads, and notable geographical markers. The map includes colored lines indicating the French front line as of April 1917, with specific notations and labels.
Aerial view of ancient earthworks and archaeological structures in a barren landscape.
Map illustrating the 1st Canadian Division's operations at the capture of the Canal du Nord on September 27, 1918, with various marked assembly areas and routes.

Most of us picture the Hindenburg Line as a single great fortress that the Allies smashed through on one glorious day. It was never that. It was a system, built on purpose in the winter of 1916 and 1917 by German engineers and more than sixty-five thousand workers, most of them prisoners of war, and it was designed to solve a very specific problem: too much front and too few soldiers.

Black and white photograph of soldiers in combat gear walking through a smoky battlefield, with damaged structures in the background.
Soldiers in a trench during wartime, sitting and engaged in various activities such as reading and eating, with makeshift bedding and equipment visible.
Black and white image of a barren landscape with scattered stumps and overgrown brush, suggesting remnants of deforestation or destruction.
A historical black and white photo of a large group of soldiers in uniform marching along a desolate path lined with bare tree stumps.

In this episode, we look at what the Line really was, from its belts of wire and concrete shelters to the new German way of defending in depth. We follow Operation Alberich, the scorched-earth withdrawal that gave it its first test, and we meet the old field marshal whose name it carried. The veterans of the 49th Battalion, the Edmonton Regiment, wrote about him in the Forty-Niner newsletter in 1930, with a grudging respect that tells you a great deal about the men who fought against him.

A black and white photograph of a military officer in uniform, wearing a hat with insignia and a serious expression.
Two military officers standing outdoors in a wooded area, dressed in historical uniforms, looking toward the camera.
Black and white photograph of construction workers building a bridge, with several individuals on scaffolding and a crowd observing from the ground.
Black and white photograph of a barren landscape with bare tree stumps and overgrown brush, depicting an area affected by environmental degradation.

Then we follow the Canadian Corps into the autumn of 1918. We stand at the Drocourt-Quéant Line on 2 September, where seven Canadians won the Victoria Cross in a single day, and at the Canal du Nord on 27 September, where Sir Arthur Currie pushed the Corps through a narrow dry stretch of canal bed in one of the boldest plans of the war. We read the 49th Battalion’s own report of its fight at the Marcoing Line, including the lessons its officer wrote down two days later. Through archival recordings, we also hear from the German, British and Australian soldiers who lived it.

An abandoned concrete slab with metal remnants, situated in a grassy field under a cloudy sky.
A scenic view of a green river winding through a forested area, with historical black and white photographs overlayed showing old structures and railway tracks.
A weathered concrete slab surrounded by overgrown grass and barren farmland, with trees in the background under a clear sky.

The Line was a system, and it was defeated by a system. It took weeks, not a day, and the cost was real. This is the story of both.

Battle of the Somme, Canadian history, Vimy Ridge, western front, ww1, ww1 history

The Goodest Boys: Dogs of the First World War

Dogs never carried a rifle in the First World War, but by the end of it they were among the most effective pieces of military equipment either side had. This episode follows two very different jobs dogs were trained to do: mercy dogs, sent out alone into no man’s land to find the wounded and the dying, and messenger dogs, run through an obstacle course of barbed wire, rifle fire, and live artillery until nothing on a real battlefield could rattle them.

Messenger Dogs in training in the First World War
A historical black and white photograph of soldiers in military uniforms standing in a line with various dogs beside them, with a crowd of onlookers in the background.
THE FRENCH ARMY ON THE WESTERN FRONT, 1914-1918 (Q 53509) A section of French Red Cross dog handlers and their dogs line up for inspection before leaving for a forward area, somewhere on the Western Front, 1914. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205023951

Along the way: a French dog named Captain who found thirty wounded men in a single day, and another named Prusco who dragged three separate soldiers to safety by letting each one hold his collar. A German dog named Steif who took a bullet and still finished the job.

A French messenger dog named Satan who went down wounded at Verdun and got back up at the sound of his own handler’s voice. And brought right home to Alberta, Paddy, a beagle cross who mobilized at the Calgary Exhibition Grounds and marched with the 4th Canadian Field Ambulance through four years of the worst ground this war had to offer.

A historical black and white photograph of dog handlers standing with their dogs in front of British Army kennels near Etaples, taken on April 20, 1918. Rows of kennels are visible in the background.
A German war dog equipped with a device for laying telephone wires, walking across muddy ground in 1917.

This episode follows the story from its unlikely beginning: a German painter who observed avalanche dogs working in the Alps, and a stubborn Scottish farmer whose own army ignored him for a decade. It takes us through the obstacle course at the British War Dog School, where dogs learned to navigate barbed wire and stand beside a firing eighteen-pounder without flinching. The narrative also highlights individual dogs from France, Germany, and Canada, whose courageous actions are still documented a century later.It closes with an honest look at what these programs cost, on every side, and why the dogs who ran them still deserve to be named.

A soldier in a World War I uniform kneels beside a dog on a dirt path in a grassy field.
THE BRITISH ARMY ON THE WESTERN FRONT, 1914-1918 (Q 10960) A dog handler of the Royal Engineers (Signals) reading the message that has just been brought to him by his messenger dog. The dog swam across the canal to deliver the message and still looks quite wet. The photograph was taken at a Army Veterinary Corps HQ Kennel near Nieppe Wood, 19 May 1918. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205213157
A historic black and white photograph of a man in military uniform tending to a wounded dog, which is wearing a red cross harness, in a forested area.
A soldier in a helmet kneeling beside a dog wearing a red cross harness, set against a rocky backdrop with a doorway and window.
A dog leaping through the air over rocky terrain, with soldiers visible in the background.
A soldier in a World War I uniform kneeling beside two dogs on a grassy field, with a wooden structure in the background.
A German Shepherd dog wearing a gas mask and goggles, sitting on a wooden surface in a garden setting.

Where memory endures, valour lives on.

Show Notes Sources

Primary & Archival Sources

  • Quebec Telegraph, “Remarkable Work of French War Dogs,” 21 June 1915, as preserved by the Royal Montreal Regiment Museum
  • Royal Montreal Regiment Museum, “French War Dogs in WW1” and “Communications in WW1” (rmrmuseum.com)
  • Imperial War Museums, “War Messenger Dogs” [Film, object 1060022726]
  • Imperial War Museums, photograph Q29549 (British Army kennels, Etaples, 20 April 1918)
  • Daily Mail, 23 June 1917
  • The British Medical Journal, “Ambulance Dogs,” vol. 2, no. 2293 (10 December 1910)
  • T.F. Jager, Scout, Red Cross and Army Dogs (Arrow Printing Co., 1917)
  • Captain Max von Stephanitz, The German Shepherd Dog in Word and Picture (1923)
  • Lt-Col. Edwin Hautenville Richardson, British War Dogs: Their Training and Psychology (1920)
  • Oliver Hyde, The Work of the Red Cross Dog on the Battlefield (1915)
  • Glenbow Museum School, “Pat, mascot of the 4th Canadian Field Ambulance” (museumschool.glenbow.org)
  • The Military Museums (Calgary), “214 Dogs of War,” Mural of Honour

Academic & Institutional Sources

  • Chris Pearson, “Dogs, History, and Agency,” History and Theory, vol. 52, no. 4 (December 2013)
  • Jill Lenk Schilp, “The Mercy Dogs of World War I,” in Dogs in Health Care: Pioneering Animal-Human Partnerships (McFarland & Company, 2019)
  • Bryan D. Cummins, Our Debt to the Dog: How the Domestic Dog Helped Shape Human Societies (Carolina Academic Press, 2013)
  • John Ensminger, “Red Cross, Iron Cross: Ambulance Dogs in World War I,” Dog Law Reporter (16 July 2011)
  • Emma White, “Training war dogs: The British experience during the First World War,” Sniffing the Past (8 July 2014)
  • The Long, Long Trail, “War Dogs in 1914–1918”
Uncategorized

The Devil’s Lace: Barbed Wire and the First World War

https://open.spotify.com/episode/0UTdw321JE3KGcWBmgu7bH?si=Yw7Y_9UXQ3qFy8WCihODbA
Black and white photograph of soldiers marching across a war-torn landscape, carrying equipment and weapons, with a barren background.

It never fired a bullet. It never exploded. It didn’t even move. And yet barbed wire, a farm fence technology adapted for war, helped turn a few hundred metres of ground into a place that could cost thousands of lives.

This episode walks the length of that wire, from Joseph Glidden’s 1874 patent through the mud of Passchendaele to the tanks that finally crushed it at the Canal du Nord.

Patented diagram of a wire fence by J.F. Glidden, detailing design and features, dated November 24, 1874.
Portrait
Vintage advertisement for Glidden Steel Barb Wire, featuring illustrations of trains, cattle, and a factory, produced by I.L. Ellwood & Co. in De Kalb, Illinois.

We look at why an agricultural invention became one of the defining weapons of the First World War, and how a wire belt was actually engineered to kill rather than simply block. We get into the artillery problem, why shells struggled to cut wire at all, and what that failure meant for the first day of the Somme.

A group of soldiers marching across a barren landscape, each carrying rifles and military gear, in a historical black and white photograph.
Black and white historical photograph of soldiers advancing during a military operation, carrying barbed wire and equipment in a trench landscape.
Two soldiers crawling on the ground near a barbed wire fence, with one holding a pole and the other looking ahead.

We follow Piper James Cleland Richardson’s Victoria Cross at Regina Trench, alongside a British parallel most listeners won’t have heard, and we look at Vimy Ridge and Passchendaele through the specific, unglamorous problem of getting a human body through a fence.

A historical newspaper page from December 11, 1918, featuring a man in military uniform awarded the Victoria Cross posthumously, alongside a photo of a father receiving his son's Military Cross from a government official, and an illustration of soldiers demonstrating a German rifle.
Gravestone of Piper James C. Richardson, V.C., 16th Battalion Canadian Infantry, commemorating his service and sacrifice, displayed with a maple leaf emblem and a Victoria Cross insignia.
A young soldier in military uniform stands outside, holding a set of bagpipes.
A display case containing historical bagpipes and a figure of a bagpiper, accompanied by a framed informational plaque discussing a war hero's contributions.
Newspaper article titled 'Hero's pipes return to B.C.' discussing the return of First World War piper James Richardson's bagpipes to British Columbia, including a photograph of Richardson in uniform.

Throughout, five archival voices carry the story from the inside: Roy Henley, Captain Wilfred Dancy Ellis and Private Jack Featherstone from the Veterans Affairs Canada Audio Archive, and Lance Sergeant George Harbottle and four unnamed Somme veterans from the Imperial War Museums and BBC sound archives.

A pair of vintage metal pruning shears with wooden handles.
A soldier standing in a trench surrounded by barbed wire, with another figure visible in the background.
Patent illustration for wire fences by J.F. Glidden, featuring a side view with detailed diagrams and annotations, dated November 24, 1874.
Portrait
A pair of vintage metal pliers with a rounded jaw and long handles, resting on a white background.

Where memory endures, valour lives on.

Full source list is available in this post’s Sources section below for anyone who wants to dig further.

Sources

Veterans Affairs Canada, First World War Audio Archive: oral history interviews with Roy Henley (166th Queen’s Own Rifles / Quebec Regiment), Captain Wilfred Dancy Ellis (4th Division), and Private John Stephen “Jack” Featherstone (46th Battalion); also the official account of Piper James Cleland Richardson, VC.

Imperial War Museums and BBC sound archives, presented by Dan Snow: interview with Lance Sergeant George Harbottle, 50th (Northumbrian) Division, recorded by historian Peter Hart in 1986; testimony of British veterans of the Somme, 1 July 1916.

Library and Archives Canada: the Victor Lionel Pimm trench panorama near Ypres; supporting material on James Cleland Richardson, VC.

Dictionary of Canadian Biography: entry on James Cleland Richardson, VC.

1914-1918-Online: International Encyclopedia of the First World War, on wire entanglements and the artillery-versus-wire problem; C.R.W. Nevinson’s Paths of Glory.

Imperial War Museums: holdings and history of Paths of Glory by C.R.W. Nevinson; Bangalore torpedo collection record.

firstworldwar.com: background on the Bangalore torpedo, developed 1912 by Captain R. L. McClintock, Madras Sappers and Miners.

Canadian War Museum: reference material on corkscrew (screw) pickets.

Wikipedia, “Screw picket”: citing period sources on the adoption of silent pickets, c. 1915.

U.S. National Archives, Hagley Museum & Library, and the Glidden Homestead: Joseph Glidden’s barbed wire patent, granted 24 November 1874.

Government of Canada (Canada.ca): Vimy Ridge, the Hindenburg Line, the Canal du Nord, and the Drocourt-Quéant Line.

Canadian history, Edmonton History, Uncategorized, western front, ww1, ww1 history

That’s Passchendaele: The 49th Battalion and the Mud

https://open.spotify.com/episode/12fgykc8yAr798fEriUY6D?si=oL_LkidPRp-cnRISPzPwZg

Passchendaele. Say it out loud and it already sounds like an ending. Ask most people what they know about it and you’ll get the same handful of words back: mud, futility, generals who didn’t know when to stop. And there’s truth in that shorthand, but it undersells what the place actually was. This wasn’t ordinary mud.

Black and white image of soldiers crossing a wooden plank bridge in a desolate, war-torn landscape with bare trees and muddy ground.
Map detailing the Canadian operations at Passchendaele from October 26 to November 10, 1917, showing troop movements and strategic locations.
Black and white photo of Canadian Machine Gun Corps personnel in shell holes during the Battle of Passchendaele, November 1917.

Three years of shelling had pulverized the drainage system of that stretch of Flanders into nothing, and then the rain came and never really stopped, so the battlefield itself turned into something closer to a swamp built entirely out of shell craters, each one deep enough to drown a man in, and plenty of them did exactly that. Soldiers on both sides wrote about the smell more than almost anything else, the reek of gas and rot and turned earth that never left you even after you’d been pulled out of the line.

Soldiers carrying a stretcher with an injured comrade across muddy terrain during wartime.
Soldiers carrying a coffin while walking past white crosses in a muddy burial site.
Soldiers in World War I assisting in the rescue of a wounded comrade from a muddy battlefield.

Duckboard tracks were the only dry ground for miles, single-file paths a few inches wide, and stepping off one in the dark, under fire, with sixty pounds of kit on your back, could be the last mistake you ever made. This was the ground six hundred men of the Edmonton Regiment’s 49th Battalion were ordered to cross, uphill, toward a village that had already been reduced to a smear of brick dust on a map.

A line of soldiers in heavy coats and helmets marching along a muddy road, with puddles and tree stumps visible, set in a barren landscape.
A black and white photograph of a man wearing a military-style cap and a buttoned coat, standing with his hands in his pockets and a serious expression.
Cecil Kinross V.C.
A soldier walking through muddy terrain and barbed wire, depicting the challenges faced by Canadians during the Battle of Passchendaele in November 1917.

This episode walks into that ground properly, the way Tim Cook and G.W.L. Nicholson walked into it, the way Lyn MacDonald walked into it when she sat down with the actual veterans decades later and just let them talk. At the center of it is a young 49th Battalion runner named Hughie John McDonald, whose job that October might have been the single worst assignment in the entire First World War, out of the relative shelter of a shell hole and back into the open, again and again, carrying messages across ground that killed men for the crime of standing up.

A historical letter dated November 15, 1917, from Lieutenant Colonel C. Bent of the 15th Canadian Battalion, expressing appreciation for assistance received from stretcher bearers during an attack in Flanders.
Letter dated November 17, 1917, from the 14th Canadian Battalion expressing gratitude to the 15th Battalion for their assistance in the Paschendale sector. Includes acknowledgments of supplies and support during operations.
A black and white portrait of a military officer wearing a formal uniform and a peaked cap, looking serious and contemplative.
Sir Arthur Currie
Map illustrating the Battle of Passchendaele with marked locations and troop movements.

Along the way you’ll also meet Cecil Kinross, Henry Norwest, and Sergeant Chester Owen McGowan, another 49th Battalion runner whose own service file turned up its own quiet, hard-won story. And woven through it all, nineteen real voices: Canadian veterans recorded for CBC’s “In Flanders Fields” in January of 1965, most of them never named, all of them finally getting a little more of their due. Six hundred men of the 49th went forward that morning. A hundred and forty-five were still standing when the sun went down.

A sepia-toned portrait of a young soldier wearing a military uniform and cap with insignia, looking directly at the camera.
Pte. Hughie John McDonald
Black and white portrait of a man in a military uniform, looking serious and posing for the camera.
Pte. Henry Louis Norwest
Black and white portrait of a World War I soldier in uniform, standing with a serious expression.
Sgt. Chester Owen McGowan

This is their ground, and their names, brought back one more time.

A stone memorial dedicated to the Canadian Corps, inscribed with a message honoring Canadians who fought in a specific battle, surrounded by greenery and a paved area.

Where memory endures, valour lives on.


Want to hear more of Hughie John McDonald’s story? Check out my book, “The Endurance of Private Hughie John McDonald: A Runner’s Bravery in the Great War,” part of myGreat War Series, and go back to Episode 5 for the conversation with his grandson John McDonald.

Sources

Books – Lyn MacDonald, They Called It Passchendaele – Tim Cook, Shock Troops – G.W.L. Nicholson, Official History of the Canadian Army in the First World War: Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914–1919 – Samantha McCrea, The Endurance of Private Hughie John McDonald: A Runner’s Bravery in the Great War (Great War Series, October 2025)

Archival records – CEF personnel file, Pte. Hughie John McDonald, Reg. No. 812200 (service record and pay ledger) – CEF personnel file, Sgt. Chester Owen McGowan, Reg. No. 101605 (service record, medical examination form, and casualty/promotion ledger card) – London Gazette, Victoria Cross citation for Cecil John Kinross – “The Forty-Niner” — 49th Battalion (Edmonton Regiment) honours and awards history

Audio – CBC, “In Flanders Fields,” episode 10, broadcast January 17, 1965 (19 clips used throughout this episode)

Institutional sources – Veterans Affairs Canada – Canadian War Museum – Vimy Foundation – Loyal Edmonton Regiment Museum, “Billy’s Own” regimental history pages

Battle of the Somme, Canadian history, Vimy Ridge, western front, ww1, ww1 history

Drumfire: Artillery on the Western Front

A group of eleven soldiers in military uniforms, smiling and posing around a cannon, with a wooden building in the background.
Soldiers operating a field gun in a wartime setting, surrounded by stacks of ammunition shells and a barren landscape.
18 pounders at 3rd Ypres, 1917
Two soldiers operating a cannon in a war-torn landscape. One soldier is loading a shell into the cannon while the other assists.
1917 Canadian Field Artillery using captured German 47 inch Howitzer

Artillery caused roughly six in ten battlefield casualties in the First World War, more than the machine gun, the flamethrower, and the tank combined. That figure comes from the British Army’s own medical and statistical history, published in 1931. It is the weapon that did the most killing in this war, and the one modern audiences can least often name.

Historical black and white photo of soldiers operating large artillery cannons on a battlefield, with smoke and debris in the air.
Illustration comparing World War I era heavy siege artillery, featuring the British BL 60-pounder gun and the German 15 cm Schweres Feldhaubitze 13. The diagram includes details on shell capacity, loading mechanisms, maximum range, and design features of each artillery piece.
A soldier in a military trench preparing to load a mortar with a shell, surrounded by woven branches forming protective walls.
A historical black and white photograph of soldiers in military uniforms pulling a cannon on a cart while carrying rifles and equipment.
Minenwerfer

This episode is built around five Canadian veterans, recorded decades after the war for oral history archives, describing artillery from underneath: Private Harry Routhier and Lieutenant John Percy Copp of the 46th Battalion, Private Donald Stevenson of the 217th and later the 46th, Gunner Thomas Wood of the 1st and 57th Batteries, and Private George Hatch of the 20th Battalion. Copp describes carrying an unexploded eighty pound German shell out of a dugout kitchen by hand. Hatch describes surviving a premature explosion in his own Stokes mortar crew by pure chance of timing. Wood describes the barrage at Vimy Ridge as “out of this world,” twice, from the position of an eighteen pounder crew firing behind it.

A cross-section view of a vintage artillery shell showing internal components and projectiles.
18 Pounder shrapnel shell
A soldier in uniform holding a shell next to a cannon positioned in a trench, surrounded by wooden barricades and ammunition boxes.

The episode also traces the technical history of the war’s deadliest weapon, from the ground up. The 1914 shrapnel doctrine, and why it failed against trenches and barbed wire. The distinction between guns and howitzers that explains why Germany, alone among the major armies, went to war already equipped for trench fighting. The 1915 Shell Crisis, when a single British battery at Neuve Chapelle was allotted thirty two shells to suppress thirty five German batteries, and how it handed Canada the largest industrial project in its history under the Imperial Munitions Board, producing more than half of all British eighteen pounder shrapnel by 1918. And the counter battery science built from 1917 onward under Andrew McNaughton, a McGill trained engineer, using sound ranging, flash spotting, and aerial photography to locate German guns that could not be seen.

A metal badge representing the Imperial Munitions Board in Canada, featuring a central bullet design, the inscription 'WOMAN WORKER', and a banner stating 'SIX MONTHS SERVICE'.
A vintage black and white photograph of a young girl wearing a bonnet and a light-colored dress, smiling softly at the camera.
Mary Mays Campbell
A historical black and white image depicting workers in a munitions factory, assembling artillery shells along a production line.
A comparison of two pieces of shrapnel and a shell fragment, with the shrapnel pieces measured at .62 inches and .5 inches, and the shell fragment displayed to the right.
Diagram of a 155mm shrapnel shell, labeled with components including fuse, head, balls, borelet, matrix, central tube, diaphragm, fiber cup, cloth disk, base charge, and rotating band.

Two Canadian war diaries anchor the comparison at the heart of the episode. In April 1916 at Saint Eloi, a gun brigade recruited across Alberta could not locate a single German battery across six days of fighting, while Canadian infantry died a few thousand yards away. By August 1918 at Amiens, and again in September 1918 at Canal du Nord, the same corps was opening fire at zero hour with no ranging shots at all, laid entirely by survey and mathematical calibration. The cost of that progress is also part of the story: Major Thomas Ringwood, who raised the 60th Battery at Regina in 1916, was killed by German shellfire on the third day of the greatest artillery success the Canadian Corps had ever managed.

Episode 20 of my podcast “Barnbow Lasses” featured author Antony J. Bell, whose great grandmother was a “Canary Girl”; a munitions worker in the ill-fated Barnbow Munitions Factory, outside Yorkshire, England. In December 1916, an explosion took her life, along with 34 other women working in the factory. You can visit his website and order his books at: Antony J Bell Author A Penny a Shell : Heartbreaking Story about Barnbow Secret #1 Shell filling factory

Antony J. Bell

Newspaper article titled 'Major Ringwood Killed in Action' detailing the life and military service of Major T. D. J. Ringwood, including his background, education, and death on August 16.
Portrait of Major T.D.J. Hengwood from the 60th Battery, Canadian PFA, who was killed in action on August 10, 1918. The photograph includes a formal military attire and a brief description surrounding the image.
Major Ringwood
Sir Robert Borden reviewing a brigade of field artillery with 18-pounder field guns and limbers in England, April 1917.
Historical military report detailing troop movements and battery positions from August 6th to 10th, summarizing casualties, advancements, and artillery actions.
A historical document page titled 'Intelligence Summary' from a war diary dating August 1918, featuring notes on troop movements, battery arrangements, and logistical details.

Primary sources: archival

War diary, 14th Brigade, Canadian Field Artillery, 1–31 August 1918. Library and Archives Canada, RG 9 III-D-3.

War diary, 5th Brigade, Canadian Field Artillery, April 1916. Library and Archives Canada, RG 9 III-D-3.

War diary, 49th Battalion, Canadian Infantry, August 1918. Library and Archives Canada, RG 9 III-D-3.

Diary of the 61st Battery, Canadian Field Artillery, 1916–1919.

Field Artillery Training, 1914. War Office, General Staff. His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1914.

SS139/3 Artillery Notes No. 3: Counter Battery Work. General Headquarters, February 1917.

Veteran interviews

Donald Robert Stevenson, 217th Battalion / 46th Battalion: Oppy Front and Canal du Nord accounts. Veterans Affairs Canada, Heroes Remember collection, veterans.gc.ca.

Thomas Wood, 1st Battery / 57th Battery, 15th Field Artillery Brigade: Vimy Ridge account. Veterans Affairs Canada, Heroes Remember collection, veterans.gc.ca.

Harry Routhier, 46th Battalion: whizz-bang account. Veterans Affairs Canada, Heroes Remember collection, veterans.gc.ca.

John Percy Copp, 46th Battalion: Minenwerfer account. Veterans Affairs Canada, Heroes Remember collection, veterans.gc.ca.

George Frederick Hatch, 20th Battalion: Stokes gun account. Veterans Affairs Canada, Heroes Remember collection, veterans.gc.ca.

[Individual video URLs and interview dates to be added once pulled per the RIGHTS note above.]

Published sources

G.W.L. Nicholson, Official History of the Canadian Army in the First World War: Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914–1919. Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 1962.

G.W.L. Nicholson, The Gunners of Canada: The History of the Royal Regiment of Canadian Artillery, Volume I, 1534–1919. Toronto and Montreal: McClelland and Stewart, 1967.

Tim Cook, “The Battle of the St. Eloi Craters.” Canadian Military History, Volume 5, Number 2, Autumn 1996.

Tim Cook, “Fighting Words: Canadian Soldiers’ Slang and Swearing in the Great War.” War in History, Volume 20, Number 3, 2013.

Tim Cook, “The Gunners at Vimy,” in Geoffrey Hayes, Andrew Iarocci and Mike Bechthold, eds., Vimy Ridge: A Canadian Reassessment. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2007.

Tim Cook, At the Sharp End (2007), Shock Troops (2008), and The Secret History of Soldiers (2018).

T.J. Mitchell and G.M. Smith, History of the Great War: Medical Services, Casualties and Medical Statistics of the Great War. London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1931.

William Van der Kloot, “Lawrence Bragg’s Role in the Development of Sound-Ranging in World War I.” Notes and Records of the Royal Society, Volume 59, Number 3, September 2005.

Brendan Alexander Vincent Patrick Hogan, “Operational Research and the Canadian Corps, 1915–1918.” MA thesis, Royal Military College of Canada, August 2021.

John Swettenham, McNaughton, Volume 1, 1887–1939. Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1968. Cited as the apparent origin of the 83 per cent Vimy claim.

Peter Chasseaud, Artillery’s Astrologers: A History of British Survey and Mapping on the Western Front, 1914–1918. Lewes: Mapbooks, 1999.

Reginald H. Roy, ed., The Journal of Private Fraser, 1914–1918, Canadian Expeditionary Force.

Online resources

Canadian War Museum, “Generals: A.G.L. McNaughton” and “The Battle of Vimy Ridge, April 9 to 12, 1917,” warmuseum.ca.

Parks Canada, national historic person designation for A.G.L. McNaughton, parks.canada.ca.

Library and Archives Canada, “Canal-du-Nord and Cambrai,” bac-lac.gc.ca.

Australian War Memorial, “8 August 1918: The Black Day of the German Army,” awm.gov.au.

Commonwealth War Graves Commission, “The Iron Harvest: a warning from history,” cwgc.org.

warhistory.org, biographical entry for Georg Bruchmüller.

Veterans Affairs Canada, Heroes Remember / Video Gallery, veterans.gc.ca.

The Royal Canadian Artillery Museum, rcamuseum.com; Royal Regiment of Canadian Artillery roll of honour, rca-arc.org.

Loyal Edmonton Regiment Military Museum chronology, lermuseum.org.

Commonwealth War Graves Commission, cwgc.org.

A note on Dr. Tim Cook

Dr. Tim Cook died in October 2025. This episode rests on his work more heavily than most this show has produced: his book chapters, his journal articles, and above all a piece he wrote in 1996, at twenty-five, arguing that the Canadians at Saint Eloi deserved better than the sterile account the official history had given them.

Canadian history, Edmonton History, ww1, ww1 history

“We’re Not Going To Siberia”: Canada’s Forgotten was 1918-1919

The Great War ended on the eleventh of November, 1918. Canada was still fighting in Russia the following June.

The 19th Alberta Dragoons (est. 1908) was the first regiment to leave Edmonton, enroute to becoming the first to see active service in France. Pictured here at Victoria Armoury (10523-100 Ave.) with Arlington Apts. in the background. C. 1913. *Second Row – kneeling – 5th from the left : Griesbach, 6th from left: Jamieson*
A group of eight soldiers dressed in historic military uniforms, standing and sitting on grass with a flag in the background.

Between October 1918 and June 1919, this country deployed almost five thousand soldiers into a nation it was not at war with, to fight an enemy it had never declared war on, for reasons its own Cabinet could not agree on and its own military command had warned against in writing before a single ship sailed.

Emblem of the Alberta 19 Dragoons featuring a golden horse standing on a patch of grass with a decorative ribbon below it.
Cover of the book titled 'Hands Off Russia: An Analysis of the Economics of Allied Intervention in Russia' by WM. Paul, featuring a circular emblem and text on a worn, brown background.
Map of Siberia, Russia, highlighting key locations of Canadian military involvement during the First World War with labeled regions including Murmansk, Archangel, Baku, and Vladivostok, and their respective Canadian troop numbers.

Two forces went, and they had almost opposite wars.

Four thousand two hundred went to Vladivostok, roughly forty per cent of them conscripts; some marched to the docks at bayonet point. They arrived to find orders forbidding them to fight, and spent fourteen weeks in a Pacific port doing nothing on purpose.

Black and white portrait of Lt. Col. E.C. Jamieson, wearing a military uniform and cap, with an insignia featuring a horse below the image.
A portrait of a soldier in uniform, standing upright with a serious expression, in a historical black and white photograph.
Historical photograph of the SS Protesilaus about to leave Victoria on 26 December 1918, with a caption noting the ship's involvement in a maritime incident in the north Pacific.
Historic photo of Canadian chaplains Harold McClausland and Jacques Oliviere, along with other officers, at the dedication of the Canadian Memorial in Marine Cemetery, Vladivostok, Russia, on June 1, 1919.
Historic image depicting the inspection of the 259th Battalion at the Willows Camp in Victoria, December 1918, highlighting wet conditions and mud.

Fewer than five hundred went to Archangel, on the Arctic coast. Every one of them a volunteer, most already veterans of the Western Front. They fought on frozen rivers against artillery that outranged them, and one of the worst days they had was the eleventh of November, 1918.

This episode is the story of both.

A memorial stone honoring Mike Sokolowski, known as 'The Forgotten Immigrant,' who died during the Winnipeg General Strike in 1919. The stone includes his name, date of death, and an inscription about his life and contributions to Canadian history.
Historical map of Russia depicting troop concentrations and areas of partisan strength, circa 1918.
Historic scene of a streetcar incident, with a damaged streetcar and a group of people gathered around, smoke rising in the air, in an urban setting.
Historical black and white photo of a large crowd gathered around a derailed streetcar in an urban setting.
Black and white image of a bustling street scene with a large crowd of people, vintage cars, and several horses running down the street.

In this episode:

Siberia – the Canadian Siberian Expeditionary Force. Based at Vladivostok. Roughly 4,200 men and one woman. About forty per cent conscripts. Commanded by Major-General James Elmsley. Essentially no combat. Twenty-one dead.

North Russia – the 16th Brigade, Canadian Field Artillery. Based at Archangel. Around five hundred gunners. All volunteers, most of them Western Front veterans. Commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Sharman. Action at Tulgas, Kadish, Ust Padenga and Shenkursk. Eight killed, sixteen wounded.

Front page of the Manitoba Free Press newspaper from June 23, 1919, featuring bold headlines about a riot resulting in one death and multiple injuries, details about the riot, and other news updates.
A historical newspaper article titled 'Bloody Saturday' reporting on a violent incident involving a peaceful parade, mentioning casualties and military control of the city.
Gravestone of Frederick Charles Jamieson, inscribed with his name, rank (1st COT), and years of life (1926-2008), located in a grassy area.
A large historical group photo of military personnel, arranged in rows, standing and sitting in front of a building. The soldiers are wearing uniforms and hats, showcasing a sense of camaraderie.

A note on the numbers:

Sources disagree about how many Canadians went to Siberia and how many died there. Where they conflict, this episode says so rather than choosing the tidier figure.

The monument raised on the first of June, 1919, counts nineteen dead. The true total is twenty-one. Men were still dying when the stone was carved. Private Richard Massey died at William Head on the thirtieth of May. Rifleman Peter McMillan died there on the sixth of June, five days after the stone was unveiled in Russia.

Sources:

Primary anchors:

G.W.L. Nicholson, Canadian Expeditionary Force 1914–1919 (Queen’s Printer, 1962), “Intervention in Siberia,” pp. 517–523

Benjamin Isitt, From Victoria to Vladivostok: Canada’s Siberian Expedition, 1917–19 (UBC Press, 2010)

Benjamin Isitt, “Mutiny from Victoria to Vladivostok, December 1918,” Canadian Historical Review 87:2

Benjamin Isitt, “Court-Martial at Vladivostok: Mutiny and Military Justice during the First World War,” in Canadian State Trials, Vol. IV

Canadian Army Historical Section, Report No. 82, “Operations in North Russia, 1918–1919”

Supporting

Mark Osborne Humphries, The Last Plague: Spanish Influenza and the Politics of Public Health in Canada (2012)

Mark Osborne Humphries, “The Horror at Home: The Canadian Military and the ‘Great’ Influenza Pandemic of 1918,” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association 16:1

J.L. Granatstein, “Gunners on Ice,” Legion Magazine

Patrick Brennan, “‘Completely Worn Out by Service in France’: Combat Stress and Breakdown among Senior Officers in the Canadian Corps,” Canadian Military History 18:2

Gaddis Smith, “Canada and the Siberian Intervention, 1918–1919,” American Historical Review 64:4

Ian Edwards, Our Quarrel with the Foe: Edmonton’s Soldiers, 1914–1918 (Friesen Press, 2020)

John Ward, With the “Die-Hards” in Siberia (Cassell, 1920)

Dawn Fraser, The Mud-Red Volunteers: Songs of Siberia and Rhymes of the Road (Eastern Publishing, c. 1919)

Archival:

Library and Archives Canada — Borden Papers, MG 26, ser. H1(a), vol. 103; RG 24, ser. C-1-A, vols. 1992–1993 and 2557; RG 18 RCMP Collection, vol. 3179; RG 150 service files

Canada, Report of Debates of the House of Commons, 10 June 1919, p. 3298

University of Victoria Special Collections — Military Oral History Collection, SC 141

Commonwealth War Graves Commission

Loyal Edmonton Regiment Military Museum

City of Edmonton Archives

Digital archive

Benjamin Isitt’s Siberian Expedition Virtual Exhibition and Digital Archive: siberianexpedition.ca holds more than two thousand photographs, war diary appendices, court martial material and veteran audio, in English, French and Russian. It is free, and it is the reason this episode was possible.

Support this work

Research for this episode meant archival fees, and those come out of pocket. If it was worth your time, a coffee goes straight back into the next one.

Support the show!

Memory and Valour also offers:

Tribute Books: the story of one veteran, researched and written properly, for the family who will keep it.

Legacy Books: multi-generational family histories.

Custom genealogical and archival research.

Canadian history, ww2

Escape From Siam: Burma Bombers of 358 Squadron, 1945

The Last Mission of Flying Officer Harry V. Smith

On the 29th of May, 1945, twelve days after his 21st birthday, Flying Officer Harry Vincent Smith of Winnipeg lifted a stripped-down B-24 Liberator off a runway in Bengal for the 25th and final mission of his tour. He was carrying four American OSS agents into occupied Siam. He never reached the drop zone.

In this episode, I tell the story of my first cousin twice removed: a prairie kid who enlisted the day after his 18th birthday, earned his wings on the Saskatchewan prairie, and flew some of the longest and loneliest sorties of the Second World War with No. 358 Squadron RAF; the secret special-duties unit that lost 24 of its 28 original crews in six months and never made the newspapers.

Shot down by nine Japanese fighters over the Siamese jungle, Harry crash-landed his burning Liberator using a Canadian bush pilot’s trick, stayed behind with a dying man while his survivors escaped. Harry was then passed hand to hand across 400 kilometres of occupied country by the Free Thai underground; villagers, policemen, doctors, a bus driver with nerves of steel, and a Regent who hid Allied airmen in his own palace.

F/O Harry V. Smith

Drawing on Harry’s 388-page RCAF service file, his co-written memoir Escape From Siam, and the family history that carried the story down to my own kitchen table, this episode follows one telegram from Winnipeg’s Furby Street into the jungle and back, and asks what it means that a family can receive two “missing” telegrams, twenty-nine years apart, with two very different endings.

 Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC)

Period:Second World War (1939-1945)Rank:Flying OfficerUnit:No. 358 Squadron, Royal Air ForceAwarded on:August 14th, 1945

““Flying Officer Smith completed much operational flying. He has displayed a high degree of skill and courage qualities which were well illustrated on one occasion in May 1945, when during a sortie his aircraft was attacked by nine enemy fighters. Although the aircraft was severely damaged and one engine put out of action in the first attack this captain and his crew fought with great resolution. The enemy pressed home further attacks with great persistence and Flying Officer Smith’s aircraft sustained further damage. Two more engines were put out of action and three members of his crew were killed. Even so Flying Officer Smith though wounded, successfully crash landed the crippled aircraft thus saving the lives of the remaining members of his crew. In the face of great odds this officer set a fine example of coolness and bravery.”

Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC)

 Croix de Guerre (1939-1945)

Period:Second World War (1939-1945)Rank:Flying OfficerUnit:No. 358 Squadron, Royal Air ForceAwarded on:November 2nd, 1945

Croix de Guerre (1939-1945)

Citation:
“For exceptional services rendered in war time in the course of operations leading to the liberation of France.”

With silver star. For Operation Mouche.

 Pilot’s Flying Badge

Period:Second World War (1939-1945)

Pilot's Flying Badge

The episode also features archival interview audio from two other Canadian Burma veterans, Frederick Sproule and Charles “Dick” Sharpe, whose own voices frame the wider air war Harry served in.

A Consolidated B-24 Liberator from Maxwell Field, Alabama, four engine pilot school, glistens in the sun as it makes a turn at high altitude in the clouds. Heavy Bombers

Sources & further reading:

Harry V. Smith et al., Escape From Siam (family memoir); RCAF service file of F/O H.V. Smith, DFC (Library and Archives Canada); Greenhous, Harris, Johnston & Rawling, The Crucible of War 1939–1945 (RCAF official history, Vol. III); Tim Cook, The Necessary War and Fight to the Finish; Richard Aldrich, The Faraway War. Veteran interview audio courtesy of Veterans Affairs Canada. The four crew members lost on 29 May 1945 rest at Kanchanaburi War Cemetery, Thailand.

Dedicated to Harry V. Smith and the crew of “P” for Peter: Bob Poole, “Lofty” Brenchley, Jack Draper, Bill Pinckney, Cyril “Curly” Copley, “Timber” Woods, “Ramsay” Roe, and Bill Pugh; and to Cpl. Naparolski, USAAF/OSS, who did not come home.

Support the show: www.buymeacoffee.com/memoryandvalour · Full episode archive and photographs: memoryandvalour.ca

Escape From SiamDownload
Battle of the Somme, Canadian history, Edmonton History, Vimy Ridge, western front, ww1, ww1 history

Seven Rounds Per Second: The Machine Gun & the Canadian Corps

A vintage machine gun mounted on a tripod, featuring a belt feed mechanism and a large barrel.
Maxim Machine Gun
A military weapon, specifically a mortar, displayed on a neutral background.
Lewis Gun
Two side views of the original water-cooled MG 08 infantry machine gun, showcasing its design and construction.
A military machine gun mounted on a tripod, featuring a sleek barrel and a metallic olive green finish.
Vickers Machine Gun

In 1882, in Vienna, an American inventor named Hiram Maxim was told by a friend that if he wanted to make real money, he should invent something to help Europeans “cut each other’s throats with greater facility.” Two years later, he had built the world’s first fully automatic machine gun.

Black and white photo of Hiram Maxim, inventor of the automatic machine gun, sitting and aiming a machine gun. He has a white beard and is wearing formal attire. The background features a grassy field.
Detailed illustration of a Maxim gun, showcasing its components such as the ammo case, tripod with operator seat, telescope, and various labels for parts like handles, crank handle, and water jacket.

By August 1914, every major army in Europe had some version of Maxim’s design. Nobody had fully reckoned with what happens when both sides of a war have the same weapon in large numbers.

A soldier wearing a helmet aims a firearm from a trench, with another soldier visible in the background, set in a wartime environment.
A soldier in a helmet aiming a rifle from a trench during wartime.
A historical black and white image of a man in a suit and top hat working on a machine gun, seated beside the weapon which is mounted on wooden wheels.
An old machine gun resting on a sandy terrain, with a coiled cable in the foreground and a blurred landscape in the background.

This episode traces that reckoning from Maxim’s London workshop, through the beaten zones and interlocking machine gun fire that built the Western Front, to the Canadian Corps’ long, costly education in how to use the weapon that had nearly destroyed it.

Group portrait of military officers, including Lieutenant General Sir Arthur Currie, H.R.H. Prince Arthur of Connaught, and Brigadier General Raymond Brutinel, who is seated in the front row, first on the right.
A historical black and white photograph of soldiers operating armored vehicles in a military camp, with some soldiers positioned on top and others on the ground.
Canadian Automobile Machine Gun Brigade
A vintage badge of the 1st Motor Machine Gun Brigade, Canada, featuring a machine gun and a wheel design, with a red background.
Black and white portrait of a man in military uniform, seated and wearing glasses, looking directly at the camera.
Brigadier General Raymond Brutinel
A typed letter discussing aircraft efficiency, operations in World War II, and detailing recommendations and observations of various aircraft models.

It’s a story that runs through an Edmonton newspaperman who talked the Canadian government into funding the country’s first mechanized fighting force three weeks into the war, through the mathematics of indirect fire at Vimy Ridge, and into the voices of five Canadian veterans who lived through what all of that meant on the ground.

Technical illustration of the Hiram Maxim Flying Boats model, showcasing its design and parts list from Primus Engineering. The image features the flying boat with various flags and labels indicating different sections and components.
Vintage advertisement for Sir Hiram Maxim's inventions, promoting the 'Pipe of Peace' and the Maxim Inhaler for treating respiratory issues.
Black and white portrait of Sir Hiram Maxim, inventor of the Maxim Gun, wearing medals and a formal suit, with text reading 'Ogden's Guinea Gold Cigarettes' at the bottom.
Vintage box containing Sir Hiram Maxim's Pipe of Peace and Maxim Inhaler, featuring bottles, inhalation tools, and an informational guide.
Gravestone of Sir Hiram S. Maxim, Lady Sarah Maxim, and Lt Col. M. Joubert, located in a cemetery, with inscriptions detailing their names and dates.

In this episode

  • How Hiram Maxim’s 1884 invention became the standard weapon of every major European army by 1914
  • Why the “beaten zone” and enfilading fire made the machine gun the single biggest reason the Western Front became a war of trenches
  • Raymond Brutinel, the French-born, Edmonton-based newspaperman and Grand Trunk Railway surveyor who convinced the Canadian government to fund the Canadian Automobile Machine Gun Brigade in August 1914
  • How the Lewis gun changed infantry tactics at the platoon level, and how the Canadian Machine Gun Corps (established April 16, 1917) turned machine gun fire into a precisely calculated, artillery-like weapon of indirect fire
  • The numbers behind Vimy Ridge: 362 Vickers guns, 258 of them firing in the indirect barrage role, nearly five million rounds allocated to the fire plan
  • The Canadian Independent Force of 1918: 80 machine guns and bicycle infantry, described by historian John A. English as the first mechanized formation in Commonwealth military history and the forerunner of the armoured division
  • Five Canadian veterans, in their own recorded voices: Charles Darwood Skeates (46th Battalion), Leonard Wood (Oakville, Ontario), Colin Bond (128th/46th Battalion), Allan “Spike” Smith (46th Battalion, Military Medal), and James Neil MacLeod (24th Battalion)

Sources & Further Reading

Primary and archival sources

  • Hiram Maxim, My Life (London: Methuen, 1915): Maxim’s own account of the 1882 conversation in Vienna that led to the Maxim Gun
  • Veterans Affairs Canada, Heroes Remember collection: recorded interviews with Charles Skeates, Colin Bond, Allan “Spike” Smith, and James Neil MacLeod
  • Leonard Wood interview (1978), filmed by Gordon Reid, courtesy of the Town of Oakville YouTube channel

Secondary sources — primary anchor

  • G.W.L. Nicholson, Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914–1919: Official History of the Canadian Army in the First World War (Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 1962): the standing primary research anchor for this podcast; used throughout for CEF organizational history, the Canadian Automobile Machine Gun Brigade, the Canadian Machine Gun Corps, and the Canadian Independent Force

Secondary sources — human/experiential anchor

  • Tim Cook, At the Sharp End: Canadians Fighting the Great War, 1914–1916 (Toronto: Viking Canada, 2007)
  • Tim Cook, Shock Troops: Canadians Fighting the Great War, 1917–1918 (Toronto: Viking Canada, 2008)

Additional research

  • John A. English, on the Canadian Independent Force as the first mechanized formation in Commonwealth military history
  • Loyal Edmonton Regiment Military Museum (LERMM): regimental history reference and collection consultation (the Museum holds examples of the Maxim, Vickers, Lewis, and German MG 08)
  • Imperial War Museums: casualty figures and background on the Somme offensive
  • Canadian War Museum and Library and Archives Canada: supplementary verification of unit establishment dates and equipment specifications

Related listening

If you haven’t heard it yet, our episode on the Newfoundland Regiment at Beaumont-Hamel covers July 1st, 1916; the day this episode’s closing act leads directly into. https://open.spotify.com/episode/0rK64WYRLFupQ65kyCQNOn?si=U4sOi647RCyggFN9tzaSLg

Visit

The Loyal Edmonton Regiment Military Museum holds examples of the Vickers, Lewis, and German MG 08 machine guns discussed in this episode. https://www.lermuseum.org/visitor-information

Memory and Valour is produced and hosted by Samantha McCrea.

Support the show at http://www.buymeacoffee.com/memoryand valour

Battle of the Somme, Canadian history, western front, ww1, ww1 history

July 1st 1916: Newfoundland’s Tragic Day on the Somme: The Hynes Brothers at Beaumont-Hamel

110th Anniversary Edition — July 1, 2026

On the morning of July 1st, 1916, more than 57,000 British and Dominion soldiers became casualties along the Somme front; the bloodiest single day in the history of the British Army.

Emblem of the Royal Regiment of Newfoundland featuring a deer, crown, and laurel wreath, set against a maroon and grey background.

At a village called Beaumont-Hamel, the First Battalion of the Newfoundland Regiment was sent forward into open ground with the wire still standing and the machine guns already aimed. 710 men out of 801 became casualties in approximately thirty minutes.

Group portrait of First Newfoundland Regiment officers and men, dressed in military uniforms, posed in a historic setting.
Two soldiers assist a wounded man on the battlefield during the Battle of the Somme in 1916, with a war-torn landscape in the background.

In this episode, we follow two brothers from that regiment: Harry and Alfred Hynes of Glenwood, Newfoundland, through enlistment, the crossing, and the field itself.

Harry was listed missing on July 1st, 1916. He was twenty-one years old.

Alfred survived Beaumont-Hamel, recovered, and returned to the line three times, wounded each time, carrying a piece of German shrapnel that surgeons never removed.

Black and white portrait of a young soldier wearing a military uniform and cap, with a serious expression.
Alfred Lacey Hynes (Wounded)
A historical portrait of a young soldier in military uniform, featuring a neutral expression and short hair.
Harry Raymond Hynes (Missing)

In Newfoundland and Labrador, July 1st is Memorial Day. This episode is why.

Hawthorn Ridge Mine Explosion – July 1st 1916, 07:20 hrs
Black and white photograph of two soldiers standing side by side in military uniforms, with one hand on the tree trunk. The photo includes text identifying them as Harry Hynes and Alfred Hynes, members of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment.
A display of three military medals, including a large silver medal depicting a lion and a figure of liberty, accompanied by two smaller medals with different designs.
Close-up of the inscription on the Beaumont-Hamel Memorial, showing names of fallen soldiers.
Headline of The St. John's Daily Star newspaper dated July 5, 1916, featuring the words 'EXTRA' and 'LENGTHY CASUALTY LISTS' prominently.
Memorial tribute featuring two soldiers from the Royal Newfoundland Regiment, Alfred Lacey and Harry Hynes. Includes their service details and photographs.
A commemorative scroll honoring Pte Harry Hynes of the 1st Royal Newfoundland Regiment, featuring a crown and coat of arms at the top. The scroll contains text recognizing his bravery and sacrifice for King and Country.
A letter from Buckingham Palace, honoring a brave life lost in the Great War, signed by George R.I.
Document dated September 1921 regarding the forwarding of a Victory Medal and/or British War Medal to Mr. Esau Hynes for his son, Harry Hynes, who served as a Private in the Royal Nfld. Regt. Includes signature and receipt acknowledgment.
Aerial map showing historical sites including cemeteries, monuments, and trenches in a landscape featuring fields and trees.

Sources

Primary Sources

Service file, Private Harry Raymond Hynes, No. 1621, First Battalion, Newfoundland Regiment — including attestation paper, conduct sheet, casualty form, and correspondence from the Colonial Secretary’s office. Library and Archives Canada / The Rooms, Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Service file, Corporal Alfred Lacey Hynes, No. 1463, First Battalion, Newfoundland Regiment — including attestation paper, medical history, casualty forms (Army Form B.103), Medical Report on a Soldier Boarded (Army Form B.179A), conduct sheet, and discharge documentation. Library and Archives Canada / The Rooms, Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador.

CWGC commemoration certificate, Private Harry Raymond Hynes — Beaumont-Hamel (Newfoundland) Memorial. Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

Newfoundland Postal Telegraphs forms — missing and wounded notifications to Esau Hynes, July 1916. From both brothers’ service files.

Memorial Plaque receipt — signed by Esau Hynes, Norris Arm, 1921. Harry Hynes service file.

Secondary Sources

Nicholson, G.W.L. The Fighting Newfoundlander: A History of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment. Government of Newfoundland, 1964. — Official regimental history. Primary reference for the Newfoundland Regiment’s order of battle, engagement details at Beaumont-Hamel, Monchy-le-Preux, and Cambrai, and the regiment’s broader wartime record.

Cook, Tim. At the Sharp End: Canadians Fighting the Great War, 1914–1916. Vol. 1. Viking, 2007. — Essential context for the Western Front in 1916, the Somme offensive, and the experience of soldiers in the line.

Cook, Tim. Shock Troops: Canadians Fighting the Great War, 1917–1918. Vol. 2. Viking, 2008. — Context for Cambrai and the later war period.

Royal Newfoundland Regiment Museum. “Beaumont-Hamel — July 1, 1916.” — Unit-level account of the engagement, including battalion war diary figures.

Royal Newfoundland Regiment Museum. “Arras 1917 (Monchy-le-Preux).” — Account of the April 1917 engagement and casualties.

Veterans Affairs Canada. “The Newfoundland Regiment and the Battle of Beaumont-Hamel.” — Casualty figures and regimental overview.

The Rooms, Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador. “The First Five Hundred.” — Enlistment, early training, and the Blue Puttees.

Heritage Newfoundland and Labrador. “Beaumont Hamel: July 1, 1916.” — Tactical overview, German 119th Reserve Regiment defensive preparations, Hawthorn Ridge mine.

Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Beaumont-Hamel (Newfoundland) Memorial — memorial record and panel inscriptions. cwgc.org.

A Note on Sources

No quotes are attributed to Harry or Alfred Hynes beyond what appears in the documentary record. All narration draws on verified primary documents or established secondary scholarship. Outstanding items — including the verbatim text of the Colonial Secretary’s correspondence — are drawn directly from the brothers’ service files and read into the episode as archival inserts.