The 105th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge was April 9 to 12 and my grandfather, Walter J. Parker was there. He shouldn’t have been, but he was there.
In fact, none of them should have been there. The First World War should have never happened. It was a war among ruling cousins and relatives — wealthy Kings, Czars and Hanger-on.
They should have put the Royalty of Europe a big gymnasium somewhere in Hungary and told to fight among themselves.
Instead, Canadians, British and Commonwealth soldiers and volunteers went to their death doing their duty for King and Country. They left their homes on the Prairies, in small towns and lumber camps and went off to a long, meaningless, forgotten war.
My Grandfather was a proud member to the 23rd Regiment, Northern Fusiliers Militia in Parry Sound. He’d gone to Niagara-on-the-Lake many times for summer drills. He even put his wedding on hold in 1910 to complete summer training.
My grandparents were living in Burks Falls, Ontario when he signed up for regular service in January 1916. Lt. Col. Arthur from Powassan was putting together a Battalion. They were the 162 Battalion, all proud to be “Northern Timber Wolves”.
By May they were camped in a field at Sundridge, Ontario practicing to be soldiers. By June 1916 they were in Niagara-on-the-Lake practicing while his wife and four children struggled to make ends meet, living with a brother in Grimsby.
In November 1916 Grandpa sailed for England and once there the Battalion was split up and became reinforcements for the thousands who had already been killed. They never knew that.
Because of his age, Grandpa Parker was assigned to the No. 3 Pioneer Battalion as a teamster. He went to France in February 1917 and was at Vimy Ridge on April 17, 1917 – building roads, hauling ammunition, digging trenches, getting shelled, hauling bodies – hating every minute.
By August 1917 he was at Hill 70 near Lens. As Veterans Affairs write, “The fighting at Hill 70 was remarkably brutal to even the most battle-hardened of soldiers. Poison gas was widely used, often forcing the men to gasp for air inside their restrictive respirators as they struggled to see the advancing enemy through their fogged-up goggles. Many of our soldiers had to engage in desperate hand-to-hand combat against the tenacious German attackers who managed to reach the Canadian defensive lines.”
Grandpa Parker was gassed at Hill 70. He suffered ‘shell-shock’. He was in a Field Hospital on August 25, 1917, a year and a half after proudly signing up in Burks Falls. He was 39.
From there it was to a rehabilitation hospital in Kent, England. He was back in Canada the following summer.
Life never got easy for Grandpa Parker. He never had a steady job and was sick and often in the Christie Street Veterans’ Hospital in Toronto, where he died in 1937.
War is a terrible thing and the bastards that start them rarely pay the price.
My mother was his oldest child. She was 8 and wrote him regularly. He wrote her. The following is a letter he wrote my Mom on December 14, 1917 from his English hospital.
My mother was born in November 1910. She learned to read and write at a very young age.
My mother never spent the 2 Marks note. She gave me the letter and note in the 1986. No, I never spent it either.
Gallipoli – Australia’s Experience – ANZAC Day April 25th
The following is the song, “The Band Played Waltzing Manila”, written by Eric Bogle, a Scot who relocated to Australia. Gallipoli was Australia’s “Vimy Ridge”.
The experience was not unlike what ‘they’ all went through.
My favourite anti-war song is Eric Bogle - The Band Played Waltzing Matilda.
