The Prince Albert Military Memorial Project

Karen Longwell, a reporter with the Prince Albert Daily Herald reported a while back about a local "Project initiated to remember Prince Albert military". Launched by Lieutenant-Colonel Malcolm Young, commanding officer of The North Saskatchewan Regiment and The Royal Regina Rifles, the Prince Albert Military Memorial Project "aims to gather information on all military personnel from any time period in Prince Albert and area. This includes service in the army, air force and navy. The aim is to get a concise list of all who served in the military - their names and their stories." LCol Young welcomes information from anyone at youngcma@sasktel.net or at 306-934-8529.

Historic Flags of Canada posters

In a slightly different slant on Canadian military history for this blog, the Department of Canadian Heritage has issued a series of posters "that highlight certain periods of Canadian history" under the title "Posters of Historical Flags of Canada". Obviously, the flag titled "Canadian Military Flags in the 20th Century" is most directly applicable to Canada's military heritage. However, there are also military examples in the "Flags of the French Regime (1534-1760)", "Flags of British North America and Canada after Confederation", "Historical Flags of Canada", and "Evolution of the Canadian Red Ensign". If the electronic version of the poster appeals to you, free copies of the actual posters can be requested from the Department of Canadian Heritage.

A Reader's Guide to Canadian Military History

Library and Archives Canada has revised its online guide to publications in Canadian military history, "From Colony to Country: A Reader's Guide to Canadian Military History". In addition to the implementation of a new design, two new campaign themes - the Rebellions of 1837-38 and the Second World War - and material on Aboriginal Soldiers in the First World War has been incorporated. The revised series of campaigns discussed include: Canadian Military History: An Overview; War of 1812; Rebellions of 1837 and 1838; Northwest Campaign; South African War; First World War; and, Second World War. As the site notes, "Each military campaign has been divided into ten new subsections that contain texts, notes and bibliographic references." These subsections are: general references, government and the military, troops and traditions, personal stories, aboriginal peoples, multicultural communities, women, art, music and literature, commemorations, and web research.

The CEF Paper Trail

Brett Payne, a stalwart member of the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) Study Group (www.cefresearch.com/phpBB2/index.php) and historian of the Canadian Machine Gun Corps, CEF, operates an extremely useful and interesting website called "The C.E.F. Paper Trail: An Unofficial Guide to the Official Canadian Army Service Records from The Great War" (freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~brett/cef/cefpapertrail.html#top).

To quote the site:

"The first phase of this project has involved the collating of examples of each type of document found in a soldier's World War 1 Canadian Expeditionary Force Service Records. Here you will find a preliminary selection, and I would like to encourage other researchers to contribute more. The guide designed partly to show prospective researchers what they can expect to find in a soldiers' service records, and partly to answer questions that I have had from fellow researchers wanting to know how they, too, can find out more of their particular soldier's military service."

The website includes detailed descriptions of the various types of documentation, as well as scans of actual paperwork. Types of documents covered include attestation records, discharge records, miscellaneous service records, medical records, pay records, and other commonly found documents (like passes and tickets). On the surface you might think this is not the most exciting content to read about. However, you'd be wrong, as an understanding of these records are absolutely necessary when trying to piece together an individual soldier's career during the First World War.

Brett welcomes "constructive comments, suggestions and contributions" to the site and can be e-mailed at bpayne@xtra.co.nz.

The New Brunswick Military Heritage Project

I was reminded, at the recent Laurier military history conference, of the existence of The New Brunswick Military Heritage Project. I remember running across this website previously in my online travels, but for some reason never got around to posting an entry about it. Well, here's my shot at rectifying that. This project, co-directed by Dr. Marc Milner and Brent Wilson, both academics at the University of New Brunswick, consists of publications, a website, and a database - all with the goal of encouraging the discovery and dissemination of New Brunswick's military history from the 18th Century to present. For example, as the pamphlet for the the project notes about the website, it "is a clearinghouse for information on New Brunswick military history: background material on the project, the database, supplementary information on the books we publish, hot links to other sites, past and upcoming lectures and special events (such as the clearing of the Red Head Battery site in Saint John), and in time, a chat room and e-publishing." The project also strongly encourages French-language input: "Malheureusement, en ce moment, le projet sur le patrimoine militaire du Nouveau-Brunswick n'est pas disponsible en français. Nous esperons que dans l'avenir proche toutes les informations seront disponible en français." All in all, a very interesting looking project, which has already accomplished a lot. I'd love to see other provincially-based projects similar to this started up.

Vimy, Vimy, Vimy

Not surprisingly, as the 90th anniversary of the Canadian attack on Vimy Ridge approaches, news about publications and ceremonies are coming fast and furious. Here are some of those I know of:

The book, Vimy Ridge: A Canadian Reassessment, edited by Geoffrey Hayes, Andrew Iarocci and Mike Bechthold has been published. The Laurier Centre for Military Strategic and Disarmament Studies is inviting anyone interested to the official book launch on Monday, 9 April, at 7.00 p.m., in the Senate and Board Chamber, Wilfrid Laurier University. As the press release notes, the book "began with the premise that there was still much more to learn about the Battle of Vimy Ridge. The collection offers new insights on the battle with articles by" Mike Bechthold, Michael Boire, Patrick Brennan, David Campbell, Tim Cook, Serge Durflinger, Paul Dickson, Andrew Godefroy, Jacqueline Hucker, Mark Humphries, Andrew Iarocci, Heather Moran, Bill Rawling, Gary Sheffield and Jonathan Vance. The launch will also incorporate brief presentations by Bechthold, Hayes, Humphries, Iarocci and Moran.

The Department of History, University of Regina, and the Humanities Research Institute are presenting "Vimy Ridge: Interpreting the Battle 90 Years Later" on Monday, 9 April, at 7.30 p.m., in the Language Institute Theatre (LI 215), University of Regina. As the release states: "The Canadian Corps captured Vimy Ridge on Easter Monday 9 April 1917. This coming Easter Monday, the 90th anniversary of the battle, two historians examine the significance of this pivotal event in the evolution of Canada as a nation." Dr. Ian Germani will speak on "The Military Significance of Vimy Ridge" and Dr. James M. Pitsula on "The Cultural Significance of Vimy Ridge".

The media is reporting that a special ceremony marking the 90th anniversary will be held at Queen's Park, the Ontario legislature in Toronto, beginning at 9.45 a.m. at the Veterans' Memorial Wall, located in front of the legislature. The event will include two minutes of silence, the playing of the last post and speeches by Premiere Dalton McGuinty and others.

Amongst all of the various activities going on in Ottawa on Easter weekend (see the Veterans Affairs Canada and Canadian War Museum websites) one seemingly unique ceremony will take place on the evening of Sunday, 8 April. The media is reporting that at 7.30 p.m. the lights surrounding the National War Memorial will be turned off and an overnight vigil will be mounted to honour those who served at Vimy. The names of the nearly 3,600 men killed in the battle will be projected in light on the walls of the memorial until sunrise the next morning and photographs of at least eighty soldiers who survived the Vimy battle will also be projected on the side of the memorial. A simulcast of the event will be hosted on the project's website.

I'm sure there's much more to come.

Private Peterson makes The Globe and Mail

A really cool thing happened today. A story on how Private Herbert Peterson, 49th Battalion, CEF, was identified using historical and scientific research, and the family's preparations for his upcoming interment was written by Katherine Harding in today's The Globe and Mail. I was interviewed for this yesterday, and there's a quote from me in the piece. Personally very cool also, just a lot less important than coverage of Peterson's story.

Changing gears, I recently ran across (I don't remember how) a new historical journal that looks quite interesting. It's the Journal of Historical Biography, a brand new periodical intended to be "published twice annually, in Spring and Autumn, by the University College of the Fraser Valley (UCFV), Abbotsford, British Columbia". The journal's description notes that it "publishes original, peer-reviewed scholarly articles on all aspects of historical biography. This includes biographical portraits of individuals of any nation, and theoretical, methodological or philosophical pieces that reflect on the larger issues associated with writing biography or autobiography. Articles may be published in English or French. In addition, the JHB publishes book reviews of works of historical biography." The first issue contains a very comprehensive article by P. Whitney Lackenbauer, "'A Hell of a Warrior': Remembering Sergeant Thomas George Prince".

Time for something a little different

I've decided to make a change in the format of The Cannon's Mouth / Par la Bouche de nos Canons. Basically, I'm going to try to make this blog more personal. As I close in on the one year anniversary of working on this project, and as I approach 120 posts, I've been thinking about the format I've settled into. And, to be blunt, I'm not happy with it. So, it's time for a change. I'm going to try to approach the writing of this blog in the more traditional (if such a term can be used for a technology so new) sense of the genre being a "web log", or diary if you will. This is reflected in my new masthead statement: "A journey through Canada's military history / Un voyage par l'histoire militaire du Canada". After all, most of what I post is a reflection of the material I discover as I follow the paths of my craft as an historian. The remainder comes from readers who send me information, and for that I'm quite glad and would like to say thank you. Please keep sending me material as I have no intention of straying from the subject matter at the core of this blog - just how it's presented.

I'm going to begin with some of the highlights of my experiences in the pursuit of Canadian military history yesterday. I spent the day at Library and Archives Canada looking at a couple of areas of research. First, I was looking for material on a trench raid in which the 49th Battalion, CEF, participated in during early June 1917. This was to help with material I've been putting together on the raid for my job at the Directorate of History and Heritage, Department of National Defence. More on that subject in a future post. Suffice it to say, I looked through a couple of battalion files on "minor operations" - the intriguing name given to patrols, trench raids, small scale attacks - but didn't find much new to me.

The second area I spent researching (and on my own time) involved finishing researching the operations log / war diary of First Canadian Army for December 1944 and January 1945 as well as the war diary for the headquarters of the 4th Canadian Armoured Division for the same period. The reason for this is work on a book length project for which I know a publisher who is very interested in having me produce a manuscript for. The project is the Allied assault on the island of Kapelsche Veer, in southwestern Holland, from late December 1944 through January 1945. This was a nasty piece of business, the terrible weather colliding with a strong sense of pointlessness about the entire endeavour. I had the opportunity to conduct a battlefield tour of the island with Dr. Steve Harris (Chief Historian, Directorate of History and Heritage) in May 2005 for the Canadian Forces' contingent involved in the commemorations marking the 60th anniversary of the end of the war in Europe. Three visits to the island - the surface of which has only changed minimally in sixty years - and I was hooked. This is a sad, heroic, tragic, violent tale - war in a nutshell. To date, there have only been a couple of article of chapter length treatments of the operation in English and the subject cries out for more. I'm still in the very early stages of research on the project, but I'm already finding fascinating avenues to follow, coming up with interesting questions, and discovering primary and secondary sources in English, French, Dutch, German and Polish (the 1st Polish Armoured Division attacked first).

Last night, I stumbled across the latest issue of the Canadian Military Journal / Revue militaire canadienne, vol.7, no.4, Winter 2006-07, to be precise. The electronic version always precedes the hard copy which I see at work. As usual, this journal has much to offer in the way of Canadian military history, including: Second Lieutenant Will Lofgren's "In Defence of 'Tommy' Burns" / "À la défense de « Tommy » Burns"; Béatrice Richard's "Henri Bourassa and Conscription: Traitor of Saviour?" / "Henri Bourassa et la conscription : traître ou sauveur?"; Rob Stuart's "Leonard Birchall and the Japanese Raid on Colombo" / "Leonard Birchall et le raid japonais sur Colombo"; Eric Wagner's "The Peaceable Kingdom? The National Myth of Canadian Peacekeeping and the Cold War" / "Un royaume pacifique? Le mythe canadien du maintien de la paix et la guerre froide", as well as a handful of book reviews on historical publications.

Le Project Montcalm / The Montcalm Project

Michel Litalien has sent me the following material for posting on a very interesting project currently underway:

"Une vaste étude sur les soldats des troupes françaises envoyés en Nouvelle-France lors de la guerre de Sept Ans (1755-1760)"

En octobre 2006, la Société généalogique canadienne-française a lancé officiellement le Projet Montcalm, un vaste projet de recherche portant sur les soldats des troupes françaises qui ont combattu en Amérique entre 1755 et 1760. Les objectifs du projet sont de constituer une base de données exhaustive sur quelque 9152 soldats et officiers envoyés en Amérique au cours des années précédant la Conquête et d’en publier les résultats dans un livre commémoratif qui sera lancé en septembre 2009. Cette recherche permettra d’établir avec précision le nombre et les noms des soldats venus en Nouvelle-France, d’identifier ceux qui sont décédés au pays, ceux qui s’y sont établis et ceux qui sont rentrés en France en 1760. Pour chaque militaire, on retrouvera des éléments spécifiques concernant son parcours militaire et civil depuis son engagement en France jusqu’à son décès.

Pour plus d’info, voir : http://www.sgcf.com/comm-montcalm.php

"Le Projet Montcalm or French soldiers in North America during the Seven Years War (1755-1760)"

Last October (2006), the Société généalogique canadienne-française officially launched the “Montcalm Project”, a vast research project on French soldiers who fought in North America between 1755 and 1760. The Project’s objectives are to create an exhaustive database for the 9152 troops and officers sent to North America in the few years preceding the Conquest and to publish the results in a commemorative book to be published in September 2009. This research will determine with great precision the number and the names of soldiers who came to New France, identify those who died here, those who settled and those who went back to France in 1760. For each soldier, it will be possible to find the specific elements related to his military and civilian career from his enrolment in France until his death.

For more info (in French), please see: http://www.sgcf.com/comm-montcalm.php

A couple of interesting blogs

Last fall, Richard Laughton - a fellow member of the Canadian Expeditionary Force Forum - began a series of blogs of interest. The first, Great War Soldiers of Canadian Communities, is described as: "An index of blog sites for Great War Soldiers from Canadian Communities, listed as casualties on the Community Cenotaph and/or other Registers." He invites others interested in this project to join him. Richard's first two ventures in this area are Great War Soldiers of Exeter, Ontario and Great War Soldiers of Milton, Ontario. The Exeter project lists the names of those found on the municipal cenotaph and provides some additional information for each name, information arising in part from a cooperative effort with a local school class. The Milton project is similar, but also includes links for each name to the Canadian Virtual War Memorial, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, and Library and Archives Canada (unfortunately, the latter links are broken at the moment). I think this is a great idea for a project, one that I hope continues to expand. Blogs are an incredibly interesting and increasingly easy means to help spread the word about Canadian military heritage. Richard's project certainly helps do that.

The 7th Book of Remembrance

One year ago about this time I was getting increasingly excited to see a project I was part of - and still am - come to fruition. On Remembrance Day 2005, In the Service of Canada, the 7th Book of Remembrance was unveiled during a ceremony held in the Hall of Honour on Parliament Hill. As Veterans Affairs Canada - the department responsible for the project - noted, the book "was created to honour the valiant men and women in the Canadian Forces who gave their lives in service to Canada since October 1947, with the exception of those commemorated in the Korean Book of Remembrance." Background on the project can still be found on the Legion Magazine website in a very thorough article by Natalie Salat titled "Bound by Remembrance".

The 7th Book of Remembrance is similar to the six that preceded it, but different in one major respect. It's open ended. It's meant to be, as Veterans Affairs put it, "a living document". When launched there were about 1,300 names in the book, dozens more have been added since, and more will continue to be inscribed in its pages. Some of these are names of military personnel who died in the 1940s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s who have been accepted for the book after further historical research or submissions from the public. Some of the names are more recent, and reflect deaths from combat, peace support, or domestic service.

I have been honoured to play a small part in this project and expect to be part of it well into the future. During the production phase I worked as part of the inter-governmental team led by Veterans Affairs to design the style and content structure of the book. My role, based on some of my duties at the Directorate of History and Heritage, revolved around historical information but, primarily, on my ability to research (and verify) ranks (they've changed a lot from 1947 to present), post-nominals abbreviations, and unit and formation titles. It doesn't sound like much, perhaps, but historical accuracy (to an historian at least) is my small way of paying respect to these men and women by trying to get it as right as possible.

As a result, I reviewed the information for each name originally going into the book, conducted further historical research, made corrections, and drafted recommended entries for the book. Often, this was, well, just plain sad. After all, each of these people shared a common fact - they died while serving their country. Honourable, yes. Worthy of remembrance, absolutely. Still sad, nonetheless. Sometimes, it was even harder for me. During my review of the bulk of the names in the spring and summer of 2004 there were several names I was investigating whose documents would note next of kin as a wife (now a widow), several months pregnant. That was heartbreaking as it was, but I found it more difficult at that time as my own wife was due to give birth in the summer of 2004. I couldn't imagine leaving them without a husband and father. Neither, I expect, would have the deceased husband and father whose case I was researching.

I continue to work on the 7th Book of Remembrance, doing historical research and recommending individual entries for Veterans Affairs. Although now it is only sporadic in terms of my work time and effort, it is still close to my heart and, I feel, of great importance. In the week before the book was unveiled last year, Veterans Affairs held a dinner thanking all those who had worked on its production. The 7th Book of Remembrance was there, open so we could look at it. The feeling was beyond description. I have not yet gone to see it since it's been installed in the Memorial Chamber on Parliament Hill. The truth is I'm waiting, waiting until my daughter is old enough to have some understanding of what it means (she's two), some understanding of why her daddy is standing there with tears in his eyes.

News from John Clearwater

Dr. John Clearwater, noted historian of Canada's nuclear (in particular, military nuclear) history, has sent me a message with respect to an upcoming project of his. His latest book will be published next spring by Hancock House Publishers in British Columbia under the title Broken Arrow #1. In John's own words, the book will be "an easily accessible review, with lots of photographs, of the worlds first lost atomic bomb accident. Using declassified documents; never-before seen photographs; and original testimony, the book shows what happened to the Mk4 atomic bomb lost over the coast of British Columbia in February 1950. Also included are transcripts of the search and rescue operations and the 2003 expedition to recover artifacts."