NO. 1 CANADIAN CASUALTY CLEARING STATION.
COL. F. L. S. FORD, C.M.G.
The first Nova Scotia Unit to be accepted and mobilized for Overseas Service with the First Contingent was a Medical Unit, No. 2 Clearing Hospital, which had recently returned from annual training at Sussex, N.B. Its headquarters was at Halifax and its Commanding Officer Major F. L. S. Ford, who afterwards became Colonel Ford, C.M.G., and was three times mentioned in Sir Douglas Haig’s despatches.
This Unit afterwards became No. 1 Canadian Casualty Clearing Station and had a most brilliant record, going through the whole war service of the Canadian Corps.
Immediately after Great Britain entered the War on August 4, 1914, Major Ford telegraphed to Ottawa offering his Unit for Active Service, and on August 10th its mobilization was ordered at Liverpool, N.S. On August 12th a recruiting meeting occurred in the Town Hall, Liverpool, which was one of the first, if not the first, public recruiting meeting held in Canada. This meeting was addressed by Major Ford, the mayor of the town, and a number of other citizens. There was a great deal of enthusiasm, and then and there the Unit was recruited up to peace-time strength, and in a few days orders were received to entrain on August 20, 1914, for Valcartier Training Camp, via Halifax.
When the people of Queens County saw this first draft of the flower of their young manhood march away in the King’s uniform for service on the battle-fields of Europe, they felt that the War was a real thing and had already reached their erst-while quiet, peaceful homes. The send-off was appropriate to the occasion and the people were proud of their noble sons who so promptly responded to the call of Empire and bore themselves splendidly as they marched away amidst the acclaim of their friends and comrades.
This Unit had always been recruited principally from Queens and Annapolis Counties, but had members on its strength from all over the Maritime Provinces and during the period of Active Service had on its roll men from all parts of Canada.
At 11 a.m., August 22nd, the Unit arrived at Valcartier with six officers and forty-one other ranks, who were soon mixed up in the moil and swirl and grind of military training in that big Camp with some thirty thousand others.
The officers, N.C.O.’s and men who went to Valcartier from Liverpool were: Major F. S. L. Ford, Commanding Officer; Capt. H. T. M. McKinnon, Capt. C. Harold Dickson, Capt. G. B. Peat, Lieut. H. A. Pickup, Q.M., Lieut. G. W. McKeen, Staff-Sergt. F. Burnett, Staff-Sergt. E. Dexter, Staff-Sergt. E. Hunt, Q.M.S. R. Robar, Staff-Sergt. R. Brown, Sergt. J. Fiendel, Sergt. McLeod; Privates—A. Crouse, J. Gardine, L. Keating, P. Joudrey, A. Morris, N. Neily, M. Reid, L. Frost, W. Joudrey, W. Murray, H. Harnish, E. Conrad, G. McGill, H. Rafuse, C. Fraser, C. Holden, E. McGowan, C. Robart, W. Bernadine, J. Hallett, W. O’Reilly, H. Oickle, C. Jollimore, S. White, A. Trefry, B. Smith, A. Joudrey, L. Brooks, H. Lantz, J. Downer, G. Conrod, R. Bell.
On arrival at Valcartier this Unit took over No. 2 Camp Hospital, and carried on as a Field Hospital. The Staff was kept pretty busy with the usual run of camp sickness among new recruits, camp diarrhœa, acute indigestion, fevers, camp accidents, and the usual P.U.O.’s and N.Y.D.’s thrown in.
While at Valcartier, the O.C., Major Ford, was gazetted Lieut.-Colonel. Capt. G. W. O. Downsley, Capt. C. E. Cooper Cole, and forty other ranks of No. 1 Clearing Hospital of Toronto were taken on the strength as well as Major H. A. Chisholm, Capt. R. H. McDonald and Capt. J. M. Stewart. Lieut. G. W. McKeen was transferred as Medical Officer to an Army Service Corps and Captain Cole was retransferred to No. 2 General Hospital.
At 4.30 p.m., September 25th, the Unit left by train for Quebec and embarked on the S.S. Megantic at 6 p.m. The other Units to embark on this ship were: The 15th Canadian Battalion (48th Highlanders), Lieut.-Col. John Currie; The 1st Divisional Ammunition Column, Lieut.-Col. J. Penhole; No. 1 Canadian Field Ambulance, Lieut.-Col. A. E. Ross.
After lying in the stream for five days the ship weighed anchor at 10.30 p.m. on September 30th and proceeded down the St. Lawrence River to the rendezvous in Gaspé Bay, for there were thirty-one troopships in this grand fleet which was to convey the Canadian Army of thirty thousand safely over the ocean to Old Mother England.
As the good ship Megantic glided quietly down the river the stars shone brightly, the silvery moon was high in the heavens, and the clear frosty tang of early autumn was in the air. As the shimmering waters of this great river glistened and danced in the moonlight all nature seemed to have an air of serene quietude and universal confidence. The scene might have been committed to canvas as an emblem of peace; but this was a first stage in the great adventure of war, the fullest bitterness of which many of that gay company were destined to taste.
At 3 p.m., October 3, 1914, this great flotilla weighed anchor and put to sea, led by H.M.S. Eclipse, immediately followed by the Megantic, containing the first Nova Scotia Medical Unit. There were a number of torpedo boat destroyers, and among the battleships were the Queen Mary and the Glory. After an uneventful voyage of eleven days this great flotilla arrived at Plymouth on October 14th. The reception given the Canadian Contingent everywhere was wonderful. The sentiment back of it all seemed to reach every heart. A splendid army of sturdy Anglo-Saxons from a new and great country had come three thousand miles over the seas to join the forces of the Mother Land within two months from the time she had entered the War.
After lying in the stream for two days the Megantic docked and on October 16th the 1st Canadian Casualty Clearing Station disembarked and marched midst cheering throngs through the streets of Plymouth together with the other Units, and entrained for the land of winter slush and mud at Salisbury Plains. At 2 a.m. on a pitch dark October morning the Unit detrained at Patney and Chirton Station and marched to West Down North, where they arrived tired and weary after a sleepless night and a long march, at 7.30 a.m., October 17th.
Major H. A. Chisholm was called for duty to the office of the A.D.M.S. Canadians shortly after arrival. Major Chisholm belonged to Antigonish, and was a member of the Permanent Army Medical Corps. He had a distinguished career Overseas and attained the rank of Colonel and was mentioned in despatches and awarded the honors of C.M.G. and D.S.O. He also held the important positions of D.A.D.M.S. 1st Canadian Division; A.D.M.S. 4th Division; A.D.M.S. attached to the office of the D.G.M.S. Canadians, London, and D.D.M.S., O.M.F.C., London.
The unusually heavy autumn rains of 1914 converted the rolling downs of Salisbury Plains into seas of mud, through which the Unit wallowed and bathed and boated in its efforts to follow field training. The troops were all under canvas at this time.
Lord Astor, then Major Astor, had a palatial residence and spacious grounds at Cliveden, near Taplow, Bucks, the grounds of which he offered for hospital purposes. In December No. 1 Canadian C.C.S. was sent to Cliveden to establish a hospital, and for six weeks the entire personnel was busy in these preparations. This hospital, established by No. 1 Canadian Casualty Clearing Hospital of Nova Scotia, ultimately developed into the great Duchess of Connaught Hospital, afterwards officially known as No. 15 Canadian General Hospital, upon which thousands of Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, South Africans and other Britishers can look back with grateful memories for the skilful and successful treatment and great kindness for which this hospital became noted.
A Casualty Clearing Station is a field unit, and consequently when the 1st Canadian Division was ordered to France this Unit received a move order and preceded the Division to France, landing at Le Havre at 10 a.m., February 3, 1915, on S.S. Huanchaco from Southampton. On the same ship was another Canadian Hospital Unit—No. 1 Canadian Stationary, commanded by Lieut.-Col. Lorn Drum (now Colonel Lorn Drum, C.B.E., Inspector of Military Hospitals for Canada). These, however, were not the first Canadian Units in France, as they were preceded in November, 1914, by a No. 2 Canadian Stationary Hospital, which was commanded in its last days in France and brought back to Canada by the writer. This was really the first Canadian Unit of any description to function in France as a Unit and the only one in France in 1914.
After some six weeks’ stay at Le Havre the Unit was transferred to Boulogne, where it arrived at 9.45 a.m., February 26, 1915.
Motion was usually rapid in France and changes made at short notice. Within a week this Unit had orders to proceed from Boulogne to First Army Headquarters at the Town of Aire-Sur-La-Lys, where it arrived Saturday morning, March 6th. On arrival the Unit was assigned to Fort Gassion, which had been a French prison before the War but was now occupied by British troops as a rest camp, and there was also a Motor Ambulance Convoy billeted there. The work assigned to No. 1 C.C.S. was to take over this old prison and make it immediately ready for the reception of patients.
The old buildings were filthy and in a dilapidated condition, and required a great deal of work to prepare them for patients, and all the equipment had to be unpacked and placed. The whole Unit went to work with diligence and determination and within forty-eight hours they brought order out of chaos and on Monday morning admitted and comfortably housed fifty patients.
The Battle of Neuve Chapelle was in progress and was the source of most of the patients during the week.
Heroic work was done by the six nursing sisters who had been attached to and had come over to France with this Unit. They were:—Vivian Tremaine, M.V.O., R.R.C., Frances M. Frew, M. U. Riverin, Amy Howard, Minnie Follette.
Nursing Sister Follette, of Great Village, Colchester County, afterwards lost her life with the sinking of the hospital ship Llandovery Castle by the Germans.
No. 1 Canadian C.C.S. was the only Canadian Unit in action during the Battle of Neuve Chapelle. It was one of six C.C.S.’s attached to the First Army. Before the War was over there were sixteen. This Unit showed such prompt action and capacity that it received the special commendation of Major-General Sir W. G. MacPherson, Director Medical Services, First Army, and in June the O.C., Lieut.-Colonel Ford, was awarded the C.M.G., the first awarded to Canadians in France.
During this engagement Capts. C. H. Dickson and G. W. O. Downsley and a party of twelve orderlies were hastily sent to Merville to assist a British C.C.S., and at the Second Battle of Ypres, Captain Downsley and Captain J. M. Stewart, of Halifax, with Nursing Sister Follette and twelve orderlies were assigned to duty at Hazebrouck to assist another British C.C.S.
There was heavy fighting throughout the summer of 1915 in the Bethune Sector, and No. 1 Canadian C.C.S. did a lot of heavy and trying work, and in addition detailed a section under Major W. T. M. McKinnon and Captain C. H. Dickson for duty with No. 2 British C.C.S., which was located at the Village of Choques.
This Unit continued its headquarters at Aire, and in May, June and September took its full share in the herculean task of evacuating the wounded from Festubert, Givenchy and Loos. During the battle of Loos over sixty thousand casualties were evacuated from the British Front by the various clearing stations in four days.
One of the outstanding distinctions of No. 1 Canadian C.C.S. is that, when His Majesty King George V was seriously injured near Bethune in August, 1915, by his horse falling and rolling over on him, one of the nursing sisters of this Unit, V. A. Tremaine, was selected by the Director Medical Services of the 1st Imperial Army for personal attendance upon the King. His Majesty was cared for in a chateau near Aire until he was able to be moved to England. Sister Tremaine and a second nurse who had been selected, Nursing Sister E. K. Ward, Q.A.I.M.N.S. Territorials, accompanied the Royal patient and nursed His Majesty through convalescence at Buckingham Palace.
When Sister Tremaine finished her duties the King conferred upon her the M.V.O. and personally presented her with the insignia of that Order and made a personal gift of an exquisite brooch of gold and enamel set with diamonds. Her Majesty the Queen gave her autograph copies of the royal photographs.
The Unit continued to operate at Aire until January, 1916, when it was transferred to Bailleul and opened up in a very fine pavilion of the Asylum for the Insane. This splendid building was subsequently destroyed by German shell fire and bombs. The Unit saw much strenuous work here, and had its first experience with gassed cases. Sixty of these out of eight hundred died within the first twenty-four hours after being brought in.
Major Edward Archibald, of No. 3 (McGill) Canadian General Hospital, was attached to the Unit as a surgical specialist, and Major W. A. McLean, of Glace Bay, N.S., was transferred from No. 1 Canadian General Hospital as his assistant, and afterwards succeeded Major Archibald. Major McLean was killed during the summer of 1917 while at work in a C.C.S. in the northern sector of the British line. He was considered one of the most brilliant surgeons in the British Army.
In June, 1916, Colonel Ford was appointed Deputy Assistant Director of Medical Services of the Canadian Corps and Lieut.-Col. T. W. H. Young succeeded to the command. Later Colonel Young was succeeded by Major C. H. Dickson, who was promoted to the rank of Lieut.-Colonel.
There was a great deal of activity on the Arras Front in the early spring of 1917, and preparations were being made for the drive for Vimy Ridge. At this time the Unit was transferred to Aubigny, behind Arras. Under the energetic administration of Lieut.-Colonel Dickson this Unit was very much increased in strength and did valuable work during the Battle of Vimy Ridge and throughout the operations on the Arras Front.
In the summer of 1917 the Unit was again moved to a position near Nieuport and arrived just as the Germans had broken through and made a nasty salient in the British line. Amidst this confusion, uncertainty and fierce fighting, the Commanding Officer, Colonel Dickson, quickly located his Unit and did such splendid work in the evacuation of the wounded that he was mentioned in despatches and awarded the D.S.O.
The Unit remained at Nieuport for a few weeks only when the position became untenable for hospital purposes, owing to almost constant shelling and nightly bombing. Lieut.-Colonel Dickson was called to London for Staff duty, the command was taken over by Lieut.-Colonel A. G. H. Bennett, O.B.E., and the Unit was transferred again to the Arras-Vimy Front.
During those anxious days of the early spring and summer of 1918, while the Germans battered themselves hopelessly against the impenetrable wall of steel erected by the Canadians along the Arras Front this Unit did fine work in caring for and clearing the seriously sick and wounded and also got many casualties from that memorable drive of the Germans against the 5th British Army in March, 1918, as all the Ambulance and C.C.S. Units in that area were quickly put out of commission.
When preparations were made for the final victorious Canadian drive which commenced at Amiens on August 8, 1918, this Unit was moved to that sector and followed the Canadian Corps through those strenuous days to final victory and accompanied the 1st Canadian Division on its victorious march into Germany. At Bonn No. 1 Canadian Stationary Hospital took over the famous St. Martin’s Hospital, which was located on one of the loftiest hills in Bonn, and but two weeks before had dukes and scions of the leading aristocracy of Germany as patients, for it had been one of the most exclusive hospitals in Germany. Now it became the haven of the sick Canadian Tommy.
It seemed like the realization of a fantastic dream to the medical Staff and nursing sisters, as well as the rank and file, to find themselves in a modern and well-equipped hospital with luxurious appointments and surroundings, as compared with four long years of mud and mire under canvas, in huts, and often broken-down buildings on the edge of the battle-fields of the Somme, Ypres, Vimy, Passchendaele, Amiens, Bourlon, Cambrai and Valenciennes, Mons, and then glorious victory.
The following is an incomplete list of the battle casualties of this Unit:—