Tag: Vimy

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.

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”
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.

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

Canadian history, Edmonton History, Vimy Ridge, western front, ww1, ww1 history

Holding History: W.A. Griesbach’s First World War Colt 1911 Pistol

This isn’t just a pistol. It’s the sidearm Brigadier-General William Griesbach carried through the First World War, and it’s sitting right here at the Loyal Edmonton Regiment Military Museum. Some artifacts just stop you cold. 🎖️

Visit the Museum located within the Prince of Wales Armouries in Edmonton today!

#MemoryAndValour #FirstWorldWar #LoyalEdmontonRegiment #CanadianHistory #Griesbach #MilitaryHistory #WWI #LERM

Canadian history, Edmonton History, Vimy Ridge, western front, ww1, ww1 history

The Last Post: The Life and Afterlife of CFB Griesbach

A green and yellow sign reading 'WELCOME BIENVENUE' in front of a fenced building, indicating a military or force headquarters. The landscape features a grassy area and a nearby road.
A view of a landscaped green hill with a sign reading 'Village at Griesbach' in the foreground, surrounded by trees and plants.

We just called it The Base.

A thousand men in eight days. A parade square turned into a suburb with four little lakes. A bronze general on a horse that most of the people living there can’t name.

Aerial view of Hamilton Gault Barracks in Edmonton, Alberta, taken in 1958, highlighting various barrack blocks marked in different colors, including yellow, red, and blue. The image indicates future developments and the location of a gym.
Bronze statue of a soldier riding a horse, set against a cloudy sky.

He was Major-General William Griesbach, Edmonton’s youngest-ever mayor, son of Canada’s first Mountie, and the officer who raised the 49th Battalion in 1915. North Edmonton’s neighbourhood of Griesbach now sits on the army base that took his name.

Abandoned two-story building with a flat roof and a central entrance, surrounded by a grassy area and tree, set against a clear sky.
Abandoned two-story building with a flat roof, featuring boarded windows and surrounded by overgrown grass and weeds, under a clear blue sky.
A black and white photo of a residential street scene featuring two vintage cars parked near a corner, with a woman walking past and children playing in the foreground.

This episode digs down through the layers beneath it: millennia of Indigenous homeland: bison country and river-valley trails that long predate the fort, the fur trade, and Treaty 6; the Forty-Niners who fought at the Somme and Passchendaele.

Emblem of the 49th Edmonton Overseas Battalion, featuring a maple leaf and a crown, with the text 'EDMONTON' and 'CANADA'.
Emblem of the Edmonton Regiment featuring crossed arms, a crown, and maple leaves, with the number '49' prominently displayed.

Among them Alex Decoteau, the Cree Olympic runner and Canada’s first Indigenous police officer; the Canadian Airborne Regiment born on-site; the base’s quieter institutional underside; and the village that remembers its dead one street sign at a time.

Portrait of a young male athlete in a sleeveless shirt with a shield emblem and medals, next to a man in a formal military uniform and cap.
Newspaper article titled 'Alberta Athlete Killed in Action' reporting on Alex Decoteau, a prominent middle and long-distance runner from Alberta, who was killed during military service in 1917.
A historical black and white photograph of a man wearing athletic shorts and a tank top with the number 202, standing in front of a tent.

Who was the man on the horse? What’s buried under the streets? And what does it mean to build your kitchen on a parade square?

Street sign for Decoteau Way in a residential neighborhood with houses and trees.
Abandoned road lined with overgrown grass and trees on either side, with visible street lamps.
A photocopied map of Griesbach base from 2000 showing various buildings and their designated labels, with over 20 abandoned buildings indicated by large black shapes.
A gravel road intersections with a paved sidewalk, surrounded by grass and trees, with buildings in the background and a smoky atmosphere.
View of a residential street with houses on both sides and a grassy lawn, featuring a visible street sign for '105 St NW'.
Two people walking on a deserted street lined with a fence in a neighborhood in Edmonton, Canada, with row houses in the background.
Map of Griesbach neighborhood in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, showing its location within the city.
Aerial view of a suburban neighborhood featuring well-maintained homes, a park area, and a lake. The image shows a tree-lined street with sidewalks and green spaces.

Sources, archives, and a free self-guided walking tour at memoryandvalour.ca.

SOURCES & FURTHER READING

The research behind the episode.

Books (research anchors)

  • G.W.L. Nicholson, Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914–1919: Official History of the Canadian Army in the First World War
  • Tim Cook, At the Sharp End (1914–1916) and Shock Troops (1917–1918)
  • W.A. Griesbach, I Remember (memoir, 1946)

Major-General William Antrobus Griesbach

The 49th Battalion (Edmonton Regiment), CEF

The land before the base (Indigenous history & settlement)

Alex Decoteau

CFB Griesbach / Griesbach Barracks

  • Government of Canada (DND) — “Canadian Forces Trail honours military history in Edmonton” (Western Sentinel, 2020) — canada.ca
  • Veterans Affairs Canada — Village of Griesbach
  • Wikipedia — CFB Griesbach — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CFB_Griesbach

The Canadian Airborne Regiment

The redevelopment (Village at Griesbach)

ARCHIVES, CLIPS & FURTHER VIEWING

Go see and hear it for yourself.

Watch — “The Black Hole”: Inside the CFB Edmonton Detention Barracks (ITV Edmonton, 1989)
Reporter Ray Rudowski tours No. 14 Service Prison and Detention Barracks — “the DB” — for a look at the harsher edge of base life: solitary confinement, bread-and-water rations, and the few reforms that followed a Canadian Human Rights Commission investigation. — https://youtu.be/LObWKxwKQGs
Source: ITV Edmonton (now Global Edmonton / Corus Entertainment), 1989, via YouTube. Embedded; rights remain with the original broadcaster.

Watch — Airborne (National Film Board of Canada)
A film showing the Canadian Airborne Regiment — the unit born at CFB Griesbach in 1968. Embeddable from the NFB. — https://collection.nfb.ca/film/airborne

Listen — Oral Histories of the First World War (Library and Archives Canada)
Streamable audio of CEF veterans recalling Vimy, Passchendaele and trench life, from the CBC’s 1964 In Flanders Fields interviews. — bac-lac.gc.ca

Explore — William A. Griesbach fonds (City of Edmonton Archives)
Photographs and papers of the man himself. — https://cityarchives.edmonton.ca/william-a-griesbach-fonds

Explore — Personnel Records of the First World War (Library and Archives Canada)
Search digitized attestation papers and service files — including the Forty-Niners — free, by name, unit, or regimental number. — bac-lac.gc.ca

Explore — The 49th Battalion Memorial Project
An online archive of the battalion’s people, sacrifice, and primary sources. — https://49thbattalion.com

Read deeper — Alex Decoteau, Passchendaele centenary (CBC News)
On the Cree Olympian and Canada’s first Indigenous police officer, who died with the 49th. — https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alex-decoteau-edmonton-indigenous-passchendaele-1.4395848

AUDIO CREDITS

  • Honour song performed by Big River Cree — recorded live at a round dance by Samantha McCrea, [year]. Used with the group’s permission.
  • “We’ll Meet Again” — performed by Vera Lynn (1939); written by Ross Parker and Hughie Charles.
  • “Original Rags” — composed by Scott Joplin (1899); public domain.
  • “Last Post” and “The Rouse” — traditional bugle calls; public domain.

Bugle calls and period music are used to evoke the era; representative, not recorded at Griesbach.

Canadian history, Uncategorized, Vimy Ridge, western front, ww1, ww1 history

War Is Hell, but What Is Homesteading?

Chip Kerr, the 49th, and a Victoria Cross at Courcelette

One wounded man. Sixty-two prisoners. A quarter-mile of enemy trench. Here’s how an Edmonton farmer pulled it off and why it was genius, not luck.

On 16 September 1916, on the Somme, Private John Chipman “Chip” Kerr of Edmonton’s 49th Battalion was clearing a German trench with a bombing party that was running out of grenades. So, with one of his fingers freshly blown off, he climbed out of the trench onto the parados, the most exposed ground on the battlefield, ran along the top above the enemy, and opened fire from behind them. Believing themselves surrounded, sixty-two Germans surrendered. It earned him the Victoria Cross.

In this episode, we rebuild the deed from the ground up: who Kerr really was (and what his attestation papers actually say), how the 49th was raised in Edmonton and then gutted at Mount Sorrel, how trench fighting and the hand grenade truly worked and why Kerr’s move wasn’t just brave, it was brilliant. Along the way, you’ll hear the voices of men who were there, and Kerr’s own grandson recounting the family story and the famous note left on a homestead door: “War is Hell, but what is homesteading?”

Heavy on tactics, rooted in the local Edmonton story, and grounded in the records, including a few myths we set straight along the way.

Much of the research behind this episode lives in the building that carries the 49th Battalion’s lineage: the Loyal Edmonton Regiment Military Museum, inside the historic Prince of Wales Armouries at 10440 – 108 Avenue NW in Edmonton. Walk through the Griesbach Gallery, stand in front of Cecil Kinross’s miniature Victoria Cross, and see everything we talked about today in the cases and on the walls. I’m currently doing my university practicum there, so if you’re in Edmonton, come and find me. Let’s talk history.

🌐 lermuseum.org

SOURCES & FURTHER READING

Primary sources

  • Kerr’s VC citation — The London Gazette, No. 29802, 26 October 1916. (Searchable free at the official Gazette: thegazette.co.uk)
  • Kinross’s VC citation — The London Gazette, No. 30471, 11 January 1918.
  • CEF attestation papers (Kerr brothers) — Library and Archives Canada, Personnel Records of the First World War (RG 150). Chip Kerr attested 25 Sept 1915 (reg. no. 101465); Charles Roland Kerr attested 22 Oct 1915; same approving officer on both. Free, digitized, downloadable as PDF: https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/military-heritage/first-world-war/personnel-records/Pages/personnel-records.aspx
  • The Forty-Niner (49th Battalion Association magazine), July 1933 — states Kerr “was drafted to the 49th in June 1916” on the breaking-up of the 66th Battalion.
  • 49th Battalion operations account / war diary, 15–18 September 1916 — Library and Archives Canada (referenced in the LAC blog feature below).

Books & official histories

  • Tim Cook, At the Sharp End: Canadians Fighting the Great War, 1914–1916 (Vol. 1). — The Canadian Corps’ “learning curve,” the Somme, and the push toward initiative at the sharp end.
  • Col. G.W.L. Nicholson, Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914–1919 — the Official History of the Canadian Army in the First World War. (Freely available as a PDF from the Government of Canada / Canadian military history collections.)

Museums & archives

Web references & background

  • The Canadian Encyclopedia — “Battle of Courcelette” and “Battle of Mount Sorrel.” https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca
  • Vimy Foundation — the creeping barrage and Courcelette. https://www.vimyfoundation.ca
  • Canadian Great War Project — service summaries for Kerr and Kinross. https://canadiangreatwarproject.com
  • Canada’s Historic Places / Alberta Register of Historic Places — Prince of Wales Armouries (former Edmonton Drill Hall, opened Nov 1915) and the Victoria Armoury (former Land Titles Building, home of the 19th Alberta Dragoons). https://www.historicplaces.ca
  • RETROactive (Alberta’s Historic Places) — “Victoria Cross Mountain Ranges” (Mount Kerr, Mount Kinross).
  • National WWI Museum and Memorial — hand grenades and trench-clearing tactics. https://www.theworldwar.org
  • William F. Stewart, “Hand Grenades and the Decline of Infantry on the Somme” — on grenade-led trench fighting.
  • 1914–1918-Online: International Encyclopedia of the First World War — “Hand Grenade” / bombing-party organization. https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net
  • Wikipedia (entry points, then chase the citations): John Chipman Kerr; Cecil John Kinross; 49th (Edmonton) Battalion; 66th Battalion (Edmonton Guards); 51st Battalion, CEF; Battle of Flers–Courcelette; Mills bomb; Stielhandgranate.

Audio credits:

  • Graham Kerr (grandson of John Chipman Kerr) — interview by Craig Ketchum, “Recounting John Chipman Kerr, Victoria Cross recipient 1916,” YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DXViuxcoME
  • Stephen Westmann and Ernest Bryan — interview recordings from the Imperial War Museums Sound Archive, featured in IWM’s podcast Voices of the First World War, Episode 23: “First Day of the Somme.” © IWM.
  • Harry Routhier and Roy Henley — interviews from the Heroes Remember video collection, Veterans Affairs Canada.
Canadian history, Vimy Ridge, ww1, ww1 history

Beyond Winged Warfare: Canadians in the Air 1914–1918

In August 1914, Canada went to war without an air force. Not a small one. Not a token one. None. The country that had pioneered powered flight in the British Empire sent its young men overseas to fly other people’s airplanes, in other people’s uniforms, for other people’s wars.

What happened next is one of the most extraordinary and least-told stories in Canadian military history.

This episode follows five Canadian airmen: Billy Bishop, the most decorated pilot in the British Empire whose most famous action may never have happened; Raymond Collishaw, who outscored almost everyone and came home almost unknown; William Barker, Canada’s most decorated serviceman of the entire war, now largely forgotten; Wop May, the rookie who accidentally became the last man the Red Baron ever chased; and Alan McLeod, eighteen years old, who climbed out onto the wing of a burning aircraft at five thousand feet and flew it home.

Wildrid “Wop” May
Billy Bishop
Nick Carter
Raymond Collishaw

Along the way, you’ll hear the actual voices of men who were there: a 1969 CBC interview with Collishaw and two of his Black Flight pilots, and a 1989 oral history with Mack McGill, a workaday RFC pilot who flew the front at twenty thousand feet and remembered, seven decades later, that the engine was no good after a few hours.

SHOW NOTES / SOURCES

Primary recommended reading

  • Tim Cook, At the Sharp End: Canadians Fighting the Great War, 1914–1916, and Shock Troops: Canadians Fighting the Great War, 1917–1918 (Penguin Canada, 2007 and 2008). Cook’s two-volume Canadian Expeditionary Force history is essential for institutional and cultural context, including the place of airmen in the broader Canadian war effort.
  • G.W.L. Nicholson, Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914–1919: The Official History of the Canadian Army in the First World War (Queen’s Printer, 1962). The official institutional history.
  • S.F. Wise, Canadian Airmen and the First World War: The Official History of the Royal Canadian Air Force, Volume I (University of Toronto Press, 1980). The definitive scholarly account of Canadian aviators in the RFC, RNAS, and RAF.

Primary sources used in this episode

  • W.A. Bishop, Winged Warfare (1918) — Bishop’s autobiography. (Now public-domain; freely available via Internet Archive.)
  • Bishop’s letter to Margaret Burden, summer 1917 — quoted in the Globe and Mail, “Billy’s Battle,” April 20, 2002.
  • William Fry, Air of Battle — memoir of the deputy flight leader who declined to accompany Bishop on the June 2, 1917 raid.
  • Wop May’s combat report, April 21, 1918 — 209 Squadron records, reproduced at wopmay.com (Wop May family archives).
  • Wop May’s address to the 12th Calgary Scout Troop, February 19, 1952 — transcript reproduced at wopmay.com.
  • Alan McLeod’s letters home — preserved by the McLeod family; quoted in RCAF “Portrait of Courage” feature, 2017, and in Library and Archives Canada material.
  • Reverend Dr. David Christie’s tribute to Alan McLeod, Manitoba Free Press, November 7, 1918.
  • Raymond Collishaw, Alfred Williams “Nick” Carter, and William Melville “Mel” Alexander, CBC-TV interview, 1969 — Collishaw (the squadron and Black Flight commander), Carter (A Flight commander), and Alexander (Black Flight pilot, Black Prince) reminiscing about the 10 Naval Squadron and the Black Flight era. Source for Carter’s first-person account of shooting down a German aircraft into the Ypres canal and retrieving a piece of the wreckage; source for Alexander’s first-person account of his kill in the July 6th, 1917 dogfight (the day of Collishaw’s six victories), including his “you don’t stick around after that to see what happens” line and the period photograph he holds on camera. Available via CBC Archives (cbc.ca/player/play/video/1.3627782).
  • “Mack” McGill (likely William W. McGill, RFC), interviewed by James Pope, 1989 — late-life oral history with a non-ace Canadian RFC pilot who flew the Sopwith Dolphin on the Western Front in 1918. Source for McGill’s first-person account of flying at 20,000 feet, the cold in the open cockpit, and the unreliability of the Dolphin’s geared Hispano-Suiza V8. From Chris Charland’s “Classic Interviews,” a James Tallimar project for TimeKeepers Canada. (youtube.com/watch?v=W3ouuITIh84)
  • William W. McGill (RFC) oral history, 1978 — extensive interview recorded by the University of Victoria with a Guelph-born RFC pilot describing his training pipeline (Long Branch, School of Military Aeronautics, Camp Mohawk, Deseronto, Camp Borden, Texas) and overseas service from February 1918. Almost certainly the same man as “Mack” McGill in the Pope interview. Available via University of Victoria Library.
  • Raymond Collishaw with R.V. Dodds, Air Command: A Fighter Pilot’s Story (William Kimber, 1973) — Collishaw’s own memoir, the source for the “fiercest and most harmless” quote and the “sad moment when my squadron had to strike the Royal Navy ensign.”
  • Victoria Cross citations — London Gazette, August 11, 1917 (Bishop); May 1, 1918 (McLeod); November 30, 1918 (Barker).
  • Roy Brown’s Bar to Distinguished Service Cross citation — London Gazette, June 18, 1918.
  • Wop May’s Distinguished Flying Cross citation — London Gazette, September 1918.
  • Raymond Collishaw’s Distinguished Flying Cross citation — London Gazette, August 3, 1918.
  • Denny May tells the story of his father, Wilfred ‘Wop May, – who was chased by the Red Baron just before the legend was shot down. Video by Ed Kaiser, Edmonton Journal, Feb. 28 2018

On the Canadian Aviation Corps

  • History of the Royal Canadian Air Force (institutional history) — for the formation and dissolution of the CAC; the Burgess-Dunne biplane; the September 16, 1914 authorization, the October 1, 1914 delivery, and the May 1915 dissolution.

On Bishop

  • Brereton Greenhous, The Making of Billy Bishop (2002) — the skeptical case.
  • Peter Kilduff, Billy Bishop VC: Lone Wolf Hunter — the defensive case.
  • Philip Markham, “An Investigation of the Aerodrome Raid,” Over The Front, Fall 1995.
  • Paul Cowan, dir., The Kid Who Couldn’t Miss (NFB, 1982).

On Barker

  • Wayne Ralph, Barker VC: William Barker, Canada’s Most Decorated War Hero (1997).
  • Ted Barris, “The Making of Billy Barker,” Air Force Magazine, November–December 2017.

On May

  • Sheila Reid, Wings of a Hero: Canadian Pioneer Flying Ace Wilfrid Wop May (1997).
  • The Wop May Chronicles family archive (wopmay.com).

On Collishaw, Carter, and Alexander

  • Raymond Collishaw with R.V. Dodds, Air Command: A Fighter Pilot’s Story (William Kimber, 1973).
  • Mike Bechthold, “Raymond Collishaw,” The Canadian Encyclopedia (Historica Canada, 2008; revised 2019).
  • Legion Magazine, “The amazing aerial feats of ace Raymond Collishaw” (2025).
  • John Harris, Knights of the Air: Canadian Aces of World War I (1958) — source for the famous “giving” victories anecdote about Collishaw’s leadership of new pilots.
  • Calgary Aero Space Museum, Nick Carter file (PDF, archived).
  • Alfred Williams Carter Distinguished Service Cross citation — London Gazette, August 29, 1917 (for actions of 22 and 24 July 1917).
  • William Melville Alexander Distinguished Service Cross citation — London Gazette, September 14, 1917 (for actions of 16, 20, and 21 August 1917).
  • CBC-TV profile of Collishaw and the Black Flight, 1969 — featuring interviews with Collishaw, Carter, and Alexander.

On McLeod

  • Veterans Affairs Canada online biography.
  • RCAF, “Portrait of Courage: Alan Arnett McLeod, VC” (2017).

Memory and Valour is available wherever you listen to podcasts.

Canadian history, Vimy Ridge, ww1, ww1 history

Fire on the Western Front: Flamethrowers, Trench Warfare, and the Canadian Experience

On July 30th, 1915, at a ruined château in Belgium called Hooge, the German Army deployed a weapon that had never been seen on the Western Front. Within minutes, a British battalion broke. Not from shells or gas; from fire.

In Episode 27, we trace the full arc of the flamethrower in the First World War: from its terrifying debut at Hooge, through the doctrinal revolution that transformed it from a shock weapon into a precision tool of combined arms warfare, to its central role in the chaos of Passchendaele and the hammer blow of the German Spring Offensive in 1918.

At the heart of this story is the Garde-Reserve-Pionier-Regiment – the specialist assault unit built around Bernhard Reddemann’s vision of what fire could do to a defensive line – and the Canadian Corps, which faced German flamethrower teams in some of the most brutal engagements of the war.

http://www.rarehistoricalphotos.com

We look at how the CEF learned to fight back, the brutal simplicity of the counter-doctrine they developed, and what it actually took to hold your ground when liquid fire was coming toward you across a Belgian mud crater.

It’s a story about a weapon. But more than that, it’s a story about adaptation: how armies learn, how soldiers function through primal fear, and how even the most terrifying technology eventually meets its ceiling.

Training footage showing a mock “combined stationary and pouncing attack” [“vereinten stehenden und springenden Angriff”] of the Garde-Reserve-Pionier-Regiment (Flammenwerfer). A type of attack that utilized both large emplaced and small portable flamethrowers (Grof and Wex in this instance). The large flamethrowers were fired at the enemy first lines while shock troops armed with portable flamethrowers, rifles, grenades, etc. rushed towards the trenches to roll and mop them up.
Here is footage of Sturmbataillon Nr. 2 training with elements of the Garde-Reserve-Pionier-Regiment at Wasigny in March 1918, in preparation for the Spring offensives.

Primary Sources
• War Diary, 5th Canadian Mounted Rifles, June 2–4, 1916 (Library and Archives Canada)
• Captain J.H. Symonds, message to 5th CMR HQ, June 2, 1916 (as recorded in 5th CMR War Diary)
• War Diary, 4th Canadian Mounted Rifles, January 24, 1916 (Flammenwerfer demonstration record)
Official Histories
• G.W.L. Nicholson, Canadian Expeditionary Force 1914–1919 (Department of National Defence,
1962), Chapter V “The St. Eloi Craters and Mount Sorrel, 1916,” pp. 149–153 — explicit
confirmation of flame projector use against the 1st and 4th CMR on June 2, 1916
• Lord Beaverbrook, Canada in Flanders, Volume II (cited in Nicholson)


Secondary Sources
• Dr. Tim Cook, At the Sharp End: Canadians Fighting the Great War 1914–1916 (2007)
• Dr. Tim Cook, Shock Troops: Canadians Fighting the Great War 1917–1918 (2008)
• Dr. Spencer Jones (ed.), Stemming the Tide: Officers and Leadership in the British Expeditionary
Force 1914 (2013)
• Mark Zuehlke, “Retaking the high ground,” Legion Magazine (June 2021) — independent
confirmation of flame projector use at Mount Sorrel
• Paul Cornish, “Flamethrower,” 1914–1918-Online: International Encyclopedia of the First World
War (Imperial War Museums, 2016) — verified 105 attacks figure
• Thomas Wictor, German Flamethrower Pioneers of World War I (2007)
• Vimy Foundation, Sanctuary Wood and Mont Sorrel
• Canadian Centre for the Great War, “It Was Simply Hell!” (2021)
• Channel 4 Time Team, “The Lost Weapon of the Somme” (2011) — Centre for Battlefield
Archaeology, University of Glasgow (Pollard, Banks, Barton, Banning)
• Imperial War Museum, Hooge after-action record

Canadian history, Uncategorized, Vimy Ridge, ww1, ww1 history

BIG NEWS!

I’m excited to announce that all 7 of my books are now available through the official Memory and Valour bookstore!

Check out my bookstore at http://www.payhip.com/memoryandvalour


Years of research, storytelling, and remembrance are now gathered in one place; covering the First World War, Canadian history, and the extraordinary people whose stories deserve to be remembered.


This is a huge milestone for me, and I can’t wait to share these works with even more readers.

Keep history alive, because where memory endures valour lives on.

-Samantha L.G. McCrea

MemoryAndValour

#CanadianHistory #WW1 #MilitaryHistory #HistoryAuthor #MemoryandValour