MBP:
Memoirs of a Blue Puttee
LOWS:
Lieutenant Owen William Steele
LML:
Letters of Mayo Lind
Many of the attestation papers and family correspondence of the soldiers are available online at: therooms.ca.
1. “Is he a prisoner of war …” (attestation papers, The Rooms).
2. “For who could tell what swift blizzard …” (definition of “nunch,” Dictionary of Newfoundland English).
3. “men wore their hair short …” The War the Infantry Knew 1914-1919: A Chronicle of Service in France and Belgium (Abacus 1988).
4. “… there was a photo of him in the newspaper …” (Evening Telegram).
5. “… it is not by men but by devils …” (Twillingate Sun).
6. “Bernard Harvey,” (Commonwealth War Graves Commission).
7. “drinking to the health of everyone else …” (MBP, p. 35).
8. “the strike of 1902 …” (Briton Cooper Busch, “The Newfoundland Sealers Strike of 1902”, Journal of Canadian Labour Studies, 1984).
9. “I thought you were killed” (MBP, p. 157).
10. “the sculpture is of two large toy soldiers …” Douglas Coupland.
11. “and left on his way rejoicing …” (22 August 1914, Twillingate Sun).
12. “had built a wall …” (Danette Dooley, Evening Telegram).
13. “before more nurses had their hands …” (Twillingate Sun).
14. “good luck and a chance …” (Twillingate Sun).
15. “… and a dozen postcards cost …” (MBP, p. 29).
16. “very hardy and accustomed …” (TFN, p. 118).
17. “a mile is a thousand …” (conversation with Jean Dandenault, Toronto).
18. “that forest of ships” (MBP, p. 35).
19. “… that care taken for an individual life …” Frederick George Scott, The Great War As I Saw It (F. D. Goodchild & Co., 1922).
20. “Jim Stacey only visited …” (MBP, p. 38).
21. “many’s the drop of salt water …” (TFN, p.127).
22. “… a slip from a rose tree …” (Your Daughter Fanny, p. 99).
23. “a tent-load of brother privates” (TFN, p.126).
24. “… essential for a writer to travel …” James Salter, Paris Review (No. 133, Winter 1994).
25. “They had milk in their tea …” p. 39 (TFN, p 129).
26. “It is very exciting …” (LML, p. 9).
27. “Christmas dinner: goose and roast beef,” (LML, p. 5).
28. “You couldn’t escape it.” (TFN, p. 131).
29. “abdominal disease,” Jack Chaplin attestation papers, The Rooms.
30. “When you’re weaving …” (Jonathan Cleaver, from an interview with Rebecca Gordon, STV News, 12 July 2012).
31. “Troop Train Disaster” (The Times, 1915).
32. “… soft end of the plank.” (TFN, p 138).
33. “… selling coal from a cart,” (MBP, p.45).
34. “… sheep wandered around the tents.” p.43 (LML, p 35).
35. “A detention camp …” (LML, p 15).
36. “… one of the men made a movie of their march …” (LML, p.28).
37. “final ‘polish’ ” (LML, p. 41).
38. George Ricketts (attestation papers, The Rooms).
39. Patrick Tobin (attestation papers, The Rooms).
40. “Real good …” (Eric Ellis diaries, The Rooms).
41. “They were not prepared …” (War Brides, “Land & Sea” Episode, CBC TV).
42. “Come, sit with Mary …” (“Sons of Martha,” Rudyard Kipling).
43. “Gas mask …” (The material here is culled from “Notes on Cluny Macpherson, 1879-1966,” Faculty of Medicine Founders’ Archive, Memorial University of Newfoundland).
44. “They are sure to be in fine condition,” Lieutenant Owen Steele, p. 116.
45. “… the coastal steamer Prince Abbas …” (MBP, p. 52).
46. Hugh McWhirter (attestation papers, The Rooms).
47. James Donnelly (attestation papers, The Rooms).
48. “Owen Steele in shorts …” (LOWS, pp. xvii & 80).
49. “The Turks used dogs …” p. 52 (LML, p. 74).
50. “Dr. Wakefield led the Presbyterians in prayer …” (LOWS, p. 25).
51. “It reminded one of the Greenland disaster,” (LOWS, p. 100).
52. George McWhirter (attestation papers, The Rooms).
53. “a pillar of the community,” (obituary, Western Star).
54. “He was a racewalker …” (introduction, LOWS).
55. “the peach trees were in bloom …” (MBP, p. 74).
56. “… tea and cakes along the way …” (LML, p.111).
57. “… John Roberts.” (Shot at Dawn, p. 98, Julian Putkowski & Julian Sykes, Pen & Sword 1998).
58. “… inculcate the offensive spirit …” (Goodbye to All That, Robert Graves, 1929).
59. “Arthur Wakefield, who had …” (Into the Silence, Wade Davis, Knopf Canada, 2011).
60. “… caribou through the snow.” (Labrador Memoir of Dr Harry Paddon 1912-1938, ed. Ronald Rompkey, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2003).
61. Bertram Butler (attestation papers, The Rooms).
62. “… a uniped.” (Saga of Erik the Red).
63. “their bayonets glistening in the sun,” (TFN, p. 266).
64. “Brandenburg cuffs …” (from a thread on the Great War Forum website).
65. “World War One is coming.” Conversation with Mark Ferguson.
66. The Norman Collins interview is from audio supplied by Mark Ferguson of the Rooms.
67. “Men who would never …” (Hugh Trevor-Roper, The Invention of Scotland: Myth and History, 2008).
68. “alive with bees,” (MBP, p. 88).
69. “The general who would have fought this war differently …” (video, Line of Fire, Part 3 of 12).
70. “… so that forevermore …” (Evening Telegram).
71. “Much could be written …” (Memoirs of an Infantry Officer, Siegfried Sasson).
72. “He recommended lying down …” (General Sir Henry de Beauvoir de Lisle, Reminiscences of Sport and War, 1939).
73. “better than the best … savours of extravagance,” (TFN, p. 493).
74. “The best small-boat seamen …” (Richard H. Gimblett, Citizen Sailors: Chronicles of Canada’s Naval Reserve, 1910-2010).
75. “eight million horses perished …” (Jilly Cooper, Animals in War).
76. “… ribbons on a mule …” (MBP, p. 75).
77. “… seven times more likely …” (The British historian Dr Clare Makepeace makes this point and discusses venereal disease and brothels in several published articles).
78. Ernest Chafe (attestation papers, The Rooms).
79. “Goodbye, Jews!” (Louis CK interview, Conan O’Brien, TBS, 2013).
80. “I venture to speak …” (Edmund Blunden, introduction to Fabian Ware’s The Immortal Heritage, 1937).
81. “miners stripped to the waist …” (Shots from the Front: The British Soldier 1914-1918, Richard Holmes).
82. “… twenty lives a foot …” (F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender is the Night, 1934).
83. Cyril Gardner (attestation papers, The Rooms).
84. “… unable to move for fear of being seen.” (George Culpitt war diary, http://www.culpitt-war-diary.org.uk).
85. Moyle Stick (attestation papers, The Rooms).
86. “… the colour of lamp black and wool.” (James Forbes-Robertson, attestation papers, The Rooms).
87. “… closed the gates …” (Evening Telegram, 19 April 1917).
88. Thomas Nangle (attestation papers, The Rooms).
89. Tommy Ricketts (attestation papers, The Rooms).
90. “two brothers in uniform,” Two Newfoundland VCs, p. 84, Joy B. Cave (Creative Printers, 1984).
91. “buildings without doors,” Leo Murphy, Veteran magazine.
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bsp; 92. “communicates with the sea …” Lewis Amadeus Anspatch, A History of the Island of Newfoundland (1819) p. 86.
93. “as stirring as it is weird …” Glenn Colton, “Imagining Nation: Music and Identity in Pre-Confederation Newfoundland” (Newfoundland and Labrador Studies, Vol. 22, No 1, 2007).
94. “Hadow, in the snow …” (MBP, p. 148).
95. Robins Stick (attestation papers, The Rooms).
96. “I was a runner …” Fred Bursey (attestation papers, The Rooms).
97. “that difficult matter is swept away,” (correspondence, The Rooms).
98. Ruben Bursey’s letter. Goliath Bursey (attestation papers, The Rooms).
99. “It is the annulling …” (D. H. Lawrence, letter to Catherine Carswell, 1916).
100. “There was an unbroken …” (Landwehr Lieutenant M. Gerster, Reserve Infantry Regiment 119, speaking of events about 29 June near Beaumont-Hamel).
101. Henry Snow (attestation papers, The Rooms).
102. Richard Sellars (attestation papers, The Rooms).
103. Alexander Parsons (attestation papers, The Rooms).
104. Eric Robertson (attestation papers, The Rooms).
105. “The whole wall was white …” (Arthur Wakefield on Everest 1922: no ‘passenger’, Ronald Bayne, Alpine Journal, 2004).
106. “… a colourful praying Hitler” is the sculpture “Him” by Maurizio Catellan, Ydessa Hendeles Foundation, Toronto.
107. Material on Prince John is from “Notes on Cluny Macpherson, 1879-1966” (Faculty of Medicine Founders’ Archive, Memorial University of Newfoundland).
108. “… rowing its weight in the boat.” (Evening Telegram).
109. “When war broke out …” Western and General report no. 92, Part I, British Empire and Africa, 30 October, 1918. Records of the Cabinet Office.
110. “… looked very smart as a page.” (Newfoundland Quarterly, 1921).
111. “… a generation that had gone to school …” (Walter Benjamin, The Storyteller, 1936).
112. Wallace Pike (attestation papers, The Rooms).
113. The People Who were Murdered for Fun, Harold Horwood (Maclean’s magazine, 1959).
114. “Sampson Hamel …” (David Parsons, CBC interview, 4 July 2012).
115. Eric Ellis diaries (The Rooms).
116. “beautiful scenery, he noted,” (notebooks of Eric Ellis, The Rooms).
117. “on a pontoon bridge” (TFN, p. 504).
118. “he thought it was a very bad order” interview with Arthur Raley, Oral Histories of the First World War, Library and Archives Canada.
119. “Mick Nugent was forty-two …” Mick Nugent (attestation papers, The Rooms).
120. “Matthew Brazil … was a miner, almost six feet tall,” (attestation papers, The Rooms).
121. “When the boys go over the top”; “I’ll be down on the last bread wagon,” Lead Belly, Lead Belly’s Last Sessions.
122. Sydney Frost (attestation papers, The Rooms). Tommy Ricketts is third on Frost’s list of recommendations for a Victoria Cross.
123. Edward Joy (attestation papers, The Rooms).
124. “The Portuguese sided with the …” footnote, p. 47, Grand Bank Soldier, ed. Bert Riggs (Flanker Press, 2007).
125. “Davidson, educated …” from a conversation with Stephen Crocker.
126. “James Moore had suffered …” (MBP, p. 163).
127. these anniversary speeches were printed in the Evening Telegram.
128. “… beginning of the loss of …” Robert J Harding, “Glorious Tragedy: Newfoundland’s Cultural Memory of the Attack at Beaumont Hamel, 1916-1925” (Newfoundland and Labrador Studies, Vo. 21, No. 1, 2006).
129. “… a dull and wet month.” (National Meteorological Library & Archive, England).
130. “The ship would have to …” (Evening Telegram, 6 February, 1919).
131. “She said they have a poster …” from a conversation with Michelle Bowes, St John’s.
132. “She was a true lady …” from a conversation with Tom Whalen, Bradley’s Cove.
133. “the kids swing on them,” Paul Mackey, quoted in the Evening Telegram, Bonnie Belec reporting, 30 July 2013.
134. “only twenty-nine years” (from p. 3 of David Facey-Crowther’s introduction to LOWS).
135. “But that George Tuff …” Thank you to Bert Riggs for this clarification.
136. “… he was a commercial traveller …” Sassoon, MOAIO.
137. “a friend of mine …” I thank Lisa Moore for the description.
138. “… on the regiment’s hockey team …” For King & Empire, p. 110, Norm Christie (CEF Books, 2003).
139. “… on his way to visit his brother.” (NL GenWeb, Diary of Herman Pearce, 17 December, 1903).
140. “She put me in a shoebox …” from a conversation with Alonso Osbourne, Seal Cove.
SOURCES AND CREDITS
For those interested in a complete battle narrative of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment, please consult Gerald Nicholson’s official history of the regiment, The Fighting Newfoundlander (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1964).
The following three books provided much insight into a Newfoundland soldier’s life:
The Letters of Mayo Lind, Newfoundland’s Unofficial War Correspondent, 1914-1916, Francis T. Lind (Creative, 2001).
Memoirs of a Blue Puttee, A.J. Stacey & Jean Edwards Stacey (DRC Publishers, 2002).
Lieutenant Owen William Steele of the Newfoundland Regiment, ed. David R. Facey-Crowther (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2002).
FURTHER READING
Trenching at Gallipoli, John Gallishaw (reprint by DRC Publishing, originally published by S. B. Gundy, 1916).
Your Daughter Fanny, The War Letters of Frances Cluett, VAD, ed. Bill Rompkey & Bert Riggs, (Flanker Press, 2006).
Grand Bank Soldier, The War Letters of Lance Corporal Curtis Forsey, ed. Bert Riggs (Flanker Press, 2007).
The Danger Tree, David Macfarlane (Macfarlane Walter & Ross, 1991).
The First Five Hundred, Richard Cramm, (C.F. Williams, 1921).
Two Newfoundland VCs, Joy B. Cave (Creative Printers, 1984).
General Sir Henry de Beauvoir de Lisle, Reminiscences of Sport and War, 1939.
W. David Parsons, Pilgrimage, (DRC Publishing, 2009).
Ernest Junger, Kriegstagebuch 1914-1918, (Klett-Cota, 2013). Thanks to Brigid Garvey for the translation.
Booklet on the History of the War Graves Commission, 1929.
The Private Papers of Douglas Haig 1914-1919, ed. Robert Blake, (Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1952).
MUSEUMS
The Rooms, St John’s, Newfoundland
Canadian War Museum, Ottawa, Ontario
The National Archives, Kew, Richmond, Surrey, England
Imperial War Museum, London, England
ONLINE RESOURCES
The Newfoundland Regiment and the Great War: www.therooms.ca
The Great War Forum: http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php
Wallace Pike information from the Canadian Orange Historical website: http://www.canadianorangehistoricalsite.com
The Browne Papers (Letters and Diaries of William Joseph Browne), ed. Madeleine Snow, 2000.
Mike O’Brien, “Out of a Clear Sky: The Mobilization of the Newfoundland Regiment, 1914-1915” (Newfoundland and Labrador Studies, Vol. 22, No. 2, 2007).
Antonia McGrath, “Museum Notes, Early Photography in Newfoundland,” 1980.
Notes on Cluny Macpherson (1879-1966): Faculty of Medicine Founders’ Archive, Memorial University of Newfoundland.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I’d like to thank Mark Ferguson, manager of Collections and Exhibitions at The Rooms, St John’s for guiding me to various archival sources. Special thanks to Michelle Bowes, who dug up excellent material on Thomas Ricketts and his family. Bert Riggs of Memorial University answered some specific questions. I appreciate the generous help from the staff at MUN’s Centre for Newfoundland Studies. Many
thanks to Michael Renshaw and Julie Renshaw for their hospitality and conversation while in Auchonvillers. I’d like to thank the staff at the Imperial War Museum in London, the National Archives in Kew, and Helen Fraser at Sandringham Estate, Norfolk.
At Doubleday Canada, my thanks to my editor, Lynn Henry. And thank you to everyone within Random House of Canada who has been part of making this book, especially Brad Martin, Kristin Cochrane, Scott Sellers, Scott Richardson, Peter Phillips, Zoe Maslow, Susan Burns, and publicist Nicola Makoway.
I would also like to thank Christine Pountney for her many insightful comments.
Note that the names of many commissioned officers, commanders, and civic and political leaders have been shortened in my account to a single given name and surname. In the historical records many of the “other ranks” barely have a first and last name. I wanted, in the spirit of Kipling, to level the value in human life, to make no distinction of the kind that middle names, initials, and honorific titles tend to encourage.
The only name I have kept in its entirety is General Sir Henry de Beauvoir de Lisle. It is such a beautifully ludicrous name and I hope the reader understands something about the character of the person who bore it and the nation and family that bestowed it.
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