HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Goderich Signal-Star, 1967-06-22, Page 12(:10(letioh Stg>aa1SStar,, Thur4dax: ,tine 32., 1967
By C ., MacLeod Ross
iL {1st 1:$l;7 A. iD tI THAT!
114 thele dayswhen a your•
ef►eratia talks of "peare
vented patriotism': I would
• speak Of July 31st 1917, The
generation Which went to war
•n 1914 was not impelled by
tnsane;folly.' They, -'knew in their
bones' that ;Germany had to be
reSiatod.. duly 31st is re:mem.
e ed because: -'the. "50 -•year
able" preserving the secrecy
of State papers of 1917 has
expired and they are common
Property:
«A voice, perhaps not my
rn f afrswer. s within me. Yilu
Will be going over the ground
again, until the hour when ag•
ony's clawed ,face softens into
the smilingness of ayoung sp.
_ring day,"
It is remembered too for the
50th anniversary of the con-
stitution of the Commonwealth
war graves - commission, of
which more later. Let us re.
tun to. 1917
The Fr ch army was in dis.
array, their morale broken due
to ,the crass vanity of Nivelle.
(How -many thousands of dead
did it need to educate him in
his profession?) Petain appears
and tells the politicians, French
and 'British, he "could not ab-,
solutely rely on his men."
Britain was' being starved by.
the U-boat campaign .of Von
Tirpitz. What to do? Thank
•God the flatulent solution we
heard so recently .was still
unborn: "There is a' only one
certain way to prevent the fight.
ing from spreading and that
is to :end it". Thank Godour
leaders were -made .of., more..
realistic stuff. Thank God there
were still men who recognised
evil when they met it.
The French counseled waiting
'till 1918. Lloyd George agreed.
Jan Smuts urged attack. Lloyd
George parried, proposing a
separate peace with Austria:
On June 19th,1917, Haig's op-
inion was canvassed. He opp-
osed waiting. "Germany was
nearer to her end than they
seemed to think ....noW was the.
favourable moment". Unfortun-
ately, as it proved, the trumpet
had given forth an uncertain
sound!
--JULY. .- 31st 1917
- The .assault opened on a 15
our Do In The Great
mile front from Bixsohoote to struck so fast that we seemed
Warneton in BelgiUm."The hope to be one shell hole away from
was to clear the Belgian coast the latest.
and open more ports. Dut we VOORMBZEELE
did not achieve the "knock. -out
bow's predicted the break . What did you do in the Great
through!, We did not even gain War Daddy? On that and some
our objectives -the Green Line, succeeding days I got one reef
the Black Line etc, etc. -Still o
less , did we shake the Bosche,
though we .continued to pour in
men and material' for 13 long
weeks till November 10th In
the result .we 1st 240',000 kill.
ed; the Germans 400,000. This
can be cempared with U.S. tro-
ops killed in Vietnam to date:
10,253. With Korea: 33,629
killed. •
You did not build up a mas.,
sive attack entirely unnoticed
in -those days and there were
ugly holes,' in the back areas,
their number increasing daily.
In the absence of . any cou*.ter-
battery"� work on our part, the
corps commander had,the aud- ruins, found someone had set
acity to issue an order of the up shop. Joseph dismounted and
day: "Seasoned troops need no went inside, He „came out smil-
artillery support"' Even `ram- ing "Now I know how I shall
f barbed wire 2000 yards
er our new- front line. -Per•
haps this is the treasure of
the triviality of one man's ef-
fort in war. I was reminded
of .this query of that time, be.
cause on August 17th We r de
in the back areas with young
Joseph our C.O., ,and when 1
say young I mean Perhaps 25
years. ;Macrae at 30 was Our
father figure. Joseph had work.
ed himself into a state near
colla se before' and during the
attack. He was a regular ameng'
temporaries and had this added
responsipllity of setting°an ex.
-ample, We rode- into Wieltje -
of all places and amid the
iliar Vlamertinghe had chang• ans
ed. The 'parting genius must you do Daddy? I bought twenty
have been carried Off on a • Tweenies in Wieltje." At that
stretcher. time ' it was the equivalent of
On the 31st it rained and con. buying a tin of Edgeworth to
da t
wen the estion: What did
tinued to, rain. The drainage y at say, the ruins of Port
system of Belgium is critical, Albert R.A. V. navigation
Some said, the fall was only school.
one foot in 100 miles. When August 18th. The field com-
two opposing forces shell such . pany was back in the line buil-.:
terrain shell holes join shell ding a beech slab road at Nor -
holes and fill with water. Mine folk Bridge. Then Sapper Brat,.
craters 'become' lakes., Prog- thwaite appeared. -He was Jos•
ress, save on foot, is impos. eph's.. runner. The torn slip he
. sible. No wheel or track ca.9 handed read: 'Dear Ross, the
• compete. Supply is by mule C.O. was hit 'pear
the -back of
pack train, the head on the Road this morn-
ing and I am afraid is dying
I have just been re -reading ....Would you come up and ad -
,,
my diary. _ After sleepless vise the C.R.E.-Yours, E. Mai
• nights,, moving_the horse lines . crae. 2/Lt."
` every three hours or so to ' I went: Young Fogerty had
avoid the shling, you I start . carried `him into .,tch a aid post
ci'ut for the Jihe with g 'Mule at thebridge and iirass, himself
train. Mules loaded With .18 covered in bl ood. •Theme I found
pounder shells in panniers; with • Joseph lying in a dark tunnel,ori
coils of barbed• wire; with a stretcher. In the murk and
screw pickets; with duck bo. the fumes of 'bntiseptic it was
ards. Up the St. Julien road hartQ.a4vo}ctthyIlndedcram�_
to Passchaendale. Hal ' Hwa!` '. med inside: The M.O. pointed
Mules wallowing ,in a pocked to where he lay unconscious
. terrain devoid' of any recogn. moaning. A glaze fuze 5.9
• isable direction signs. Mules shell had blown the back of
Striving - refusing - men urg• his skull away. There wasn't
ing - mules " and men drown. an earthly. Half an hour per.
. ing in lakes of water, all be.. haps, when his body, would be
tween two storms of shell fire, carried outside to weather the
crashing among the ,tree st shelling again and so make
umps. Dante described trees room for someone who could
on a battlefield long ago, Shells • benefit from -aid.
Ask about convenient departure
and return times
For information, phone the local
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The message was timed 4.55
Pm, it read; "Ma jor Josephdied
. at 4, 20 pm. body, is being sent to
Voormezeele". We sent a im•
ber for the bloodied blanket
in which he was sewn- called
Bloxham, the padre, and at 3
o'clock on the 19th , we put,him
in a grave newly dug near the
wreckage of the convent.
Voor mezeele , became one of •
24,000 burial groundescattered
from New Caledonia to Norway
,sand Kohima to Flanders. They '
contain 1,115,000 dead of the
First World War and. 580,000
of ' the Second. Their named -
memorials cover ail the coun.
tries of the Commonwealth or
former Commonwealth. These
cemeteries came ,into existence
50 years ago and commemorate
not conquest ,but sacrifice, sa
that the, world might "move
into broad sunlit uplands, in•
stead of, sinking into the abyss
of a new Dark Age", All
these spots, which, like - that
hole at Voortuezeele on August.
19th 1917, wore the image and
horror of war, have since been
transformed into paradises of
lawn, hedge and tree.
All are different, yet all con-
vey the same message: of
peace, of quietude; of sacri-
fice shared and of duty done,
All this has been the work of
the Commonwealth war graves
commission, constituted on May
..21st, 1917, by Royal Charter.
° ' "For your- today they gave
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ar
their tomorrciiw''. You will be
going over the ground again
and again "until it shall be
Daddy
the simplest thing to. take in
your hands the hands of com.
panions like Joseph and Fog.
Moved Wire
erty, in whose recaptured gent.
leness no sign, of death's as.
tonishment, or time's separa.
�
tion shall be imaginable."
quotations are by Sir Winston
Churchill and Edmund' Blunden.
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