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George DenholmConn

The Death of a Quarryman

By John Thompson,

Sunday, April 8, 2007

Foreword

It was my brother Stephen who first began this explorationinto our missing relative, turning up with copies of our Grandfather John Conn'sthree sets of enlistment papers for service with Canada's Expeditionary Force(CEF) in World War One. Mom thenmade some reference to her uncle George who had joined the CEF and died eightmonths later, but recalled not much more than that. This was enough to trigger my curiosity.

Following Stephen's lead, I began with some archival workover the internet -- which is now much easier than it sounds, and soon hadenough to contact the Commonwealth War Graves Commission to find out whereGeorge was buried. It turned outthat George Conn's body was never found, but that he was listed as having diedeither on April 22nd or April 24th, 1915 with the 13thBattalion of the CEF. This putGeorge amid the Canadian Army's first battle in World War One, and the 13thBattalion's experiences were grim indeed.

Being without a known grave, our unknown great uncle is oneof the tens of thousands whose resting place is the Menin Gate -- the memorial tothe missing in Ypres, Belgium. After sharing my findings with Mom, she thought that, so far as shecould tell, nobody from the family had ever visited the site. I decided that the next time I was inEurope, I would take a few days off and make the trip.

These are the results. I'd also like to thank my brother Brian for taking the trouble topresent a disparate set of maps, photos and a bit of history and compiling itinto a presentable format.

Ypres

The small city of Ypres in the extreme northwestern tip ofBelgium remained at the epicentre of some of the worst fighting on the WesternFront for four years. Five majorcampaigns and numerous small battles were fought around it, and the city itselfwas turned to a field of rubble over the course of years of constant shelling.

The city remained important for two reasons. When the FirstWorld War began, Germany violated Belgium's neutrality (which was the officialreason for Britain's declaration of War in August 1914); and the Germansrapidly overran most of the country. The only Belgian city to remain out of their hands was Ypres. As the last of the much batteredBelgian Army reeled west across the Yser River in October 1914 which runs tothe North Sea from Ypres, they opened the dykes and left a flooded barrier theGermans could not cross.

Ypres was also a vital road junction and the Germans neededto capture it if they were ever to close in on the vital ports on the EnglishChannel (Calais, Dunkirk, and Boulogne) from which British troops and supplieswere reaching France.

The area around Ypres is flat and the water-table lies closeto the surface of its rich clay soils. Trenches soon flooded and deep mud seldom soon appeared once earthworksand shell craters interfered with natural drainage. A ridge of high ground (about 20 metres, which is quitemilitarily significant in such a flat countryside) arcs around Ypres in a greatcrescent from the south to the north east of the city, about 8 kilometresdistant from the town centre.

There were five major battles around Ypres.

First Ypres

First Ypres was fought in October and November of 1914, as the Germans hurled their firstformations of volunteers at what remained of the British and Belgian regularsaround Ypres. The Germans refer tothis as ‚Der Kindermord' [Death of Children]; for so many of their green troopspiled up in heaps by British rifle fire had been students a few months earlier.

Second Ypres

Second Ypres (of which more anon) began in April 1915; the Germans launched another drive onthe city and began their offensive with the first poison gas attack inhistory. The offensive petered outby the end of May, but not before the Germans made some significant gains inthe beginning of their attack.

Third Ypres

Third Ypres isalso referred to as the battle of Passchendaele began in June 1917 with theBattle of Messines Ridge and continued till the Passchendaele village wascaptured in November. This longcampaign is often criticized as an extreme waste of lives and material andconditions in October and November were probably the worst ever endured on theWestern Front. However; the battleis often seen as being necessary to divert German attention from the FrenchArmy (wracked by a major mutiny earlier in 1917). Moreover, this prolongedoffensive cost the Germans much more than they could afford. German memories of the battle are asgrim as they are to the Australians, British and Canadians.

The worst ofconditions in 3rd Ypres, hundreds of men drowned in mud.

Fourth Battle of Ypres

The Fourth Battle of Ypres is often overlooked in the English histories of theWar -- the high ground around Ypres which was taken at such cost in 1917 wasretaken in a few days by a surprise German offensive in April 1918. The Germans, who had managed to shift hundreds of thousands of troops to the Western Front after signing a peace withSoviet Russia, quickly displaced the tired French forces guarding the city andcame closer to Ypres then ever by the time the offensive ran out of steam inearly May.

Fifth Battle of Ypres

The Germans were finally pushed away from Ypres in the FifthBattle in September and October 1918when, thanks to the general British offensive -- spear-headed to great effectby the Canadian Corps -- that started the collapse of their armies on theWestern Front. Ironically, it wasthe Belgians (with British support) who led the assault that finally drove the Germansartillery away from the much-battered city.

Altogether, about 300,000 of the British and Dominion908,000 war dead fell around Ypres including some 21,000 of Canada's 55,000dead. Of these 300,000, some90,000 have no known graves and their remains have either never been found oridentified. Among these is GeorgeDenholm Conn.

The Start of Tynecot Cemetery in 1917

Tynecot today -- 13,000 graves and the names of another 34,000 missing British soldiers engraved on the walls.

The Death of a Quarryman

The 13th Battalion of the CEF was largely based on the Royal Highlanders of Canada (or the Canadian Black Watch -- which still exists as a Reserve unit in Montreal). As it formed in September of 1915 in Valcartier, outside of Quebec City, a tall lean fair-haired grey-eyed 19 year-old Scottish quarryman from Brockville Ontario was slotted into the unit. Like the rest, 24466 Private Conn, G.D. would have been hastily trained in Quebec, and then shipped over to England in late October as a part of the 1st Canadian Division.

One of the many aspects of their training was the constant interference of the then defence minister -- Sir Sam Hughes, a blustering bully. Hughes, who always remained under the impression that he was a military genius, saddled the troops with many burdens. One of them was the Ross Rifle. Hughes didn't want his troops to use the standard Lee Enfield Mark III rifle in use throughout the British and Dominion Armies; instead they got a rifle produced by a friend of his -- the Ross. This rifle was slightly more accurate than the Lee Enfield, but was much less reliable and jammed when exposed to damp and dirt, and when fired rapidly.

Once in the UK, the Canadians were consigned to tents on the wet and windy Salisbury Plain for more training through a winter of extreme discomfort. Then in February, the components of the Division were shipped to France and sent to quiet sectors of the front under British control to become familiarized with local conditions. On April 14th, 1915, the Division was fully assembled and sent into the Ypres salient.

The 13th Battalion was on the very front line, about 4.5 miles northeast of Ypres, past the village of St. Julien and the tiny crossroads hamlet of Keerselaere. They were on the extreme left of the Canadian division, bordering on a division of French Algerian troops. The trenches were not continuous (the 13th's position straddled a stream bed in low ground) and the French troops that had occupied the position earlier hadn't been too particular about where they buried their waste. Most of the defences were breastworks and needed strengthening.

A week later, the positions were still being improved; mostly at night -- movement in daylight hours was too likely to attract fire from the enemy. However, the 13th was about to be at the centre of events.

Around 5:00 PM on the 22nd of April, the Germans unleashed the first poison gas attack in history. The attack was centred on the French to the left of the Canadians, and they were soon engulfed in a cloud of green vapor. The new weapon was a total surprise, and most of the French African troops took the rear, coughing and spitting up phlegm, and hundreds died from the gas. By contrast, some of the Canadian soldiers on the edge of the cloud had been chemistry students and realized that an ammonia soaked rag would protect against the effects of the chlorine. The world's first 'gas masks' -- urine soaked handkerchiefs -- were hastily improvised by the men of the 13th Battalion.

In the long April evening, the Germans took their time about following the gas cloud with an infantry attack, but by 8:00 PM thousands and thousands of them were streaming into the open gap on the Canadian flank. The 13th Battalion suddenly had twice the frontage to cover with its 900 men, and thinned out its defences to bring fire onto the advancing Germans. Other members of the battalion in reserve positions were plugged into a hasty new defence line as the Allies struggled to react to a looming disaster.

All through the evening and into the night, in hasty defences scratched in the soil, or in strong points improvised out of local farms, members of the 13th Battalion did what they could to buy time. The first of the 70 Victoria Crosses won by Canadians in World War One was earned that evening by the 19 year old Lance Corporal Fred Fisher of the 13th Battalion who took eight men and two machineguns out to engage the Germans. For all we know, one of the eight could have been George Conn. Fisher returned out of ammunition, with only two men left, and was killed on the 23rd when he attempted to repeat his feat.

Sixty men of the 13th vanished in the darkness near St. Julian after their positions were overrun by the Germans. Like many Canadian soldiers, they were suddenly finding that their Ross Rifles were less than ideal when confronting an attack. Many died clutching jammed rifles, and the fact that the bayonet could fall off when the rifle was fired didn't help much either. The rifle was officially replaced in early 1916, as was Sir Sam Hughes, but most survivors of the battle swapped their rifles for Lee Enfield rifles as soon as they could.

On the morning of the 23rd, the 13th Battalion found it was at the apex of a small salient, with German fire coming in from two opposite directions. Half of the Regiment couldn't be accounted for, but they held on for two more days before being pulled back.

For men in their first battle, the 13th -- like the rest of the Canadian Division -- acquitted themselves well and showed signs of the flexibility and toughness that later earned the Canadians a reputation as the elite force on the Western Front. But for the 13th, the price was very steep: Out of some 900 men, 162 men had been evacuated with wounds and 400 were dead or missing (of whom a few were captured).

George Conn was listed as dead, apparently on the evening of 22nd of April and was officially reported as such when the 13th was able to detail its losses two days later. However, his body was probably left for the Germans to tend to, and with another three years of mud and shellfire in the salient, it vanished forever. The 13th would be reconstituted, and would continue to fight in the Ypres Salient with the rest of the Canadian Army through the rest of 1915, and would be back for the Passchendaele offensive in 1917.

General Picture -- the 13th Battalion was the northernmost tip of the Canadian lines on this depiction of situation on the evening of the 22nd.

Part of the 13th Battalion position on April 1915 ran among these two farms.

Part of the extended improvised defences of the 13th Battalion CEF ran down in the low ground here on the evening of the 22nd of April. The spire in the distance is Langemark, where the massive German cemetery for the sector is located.

Fred Fisher won the Victoria Cross about where the red-topped barn and house stand.

The Menin Gate

Of the 90,000 missing in the Ypres Sector, some 56,000 (including all of the 6,981 Canadians) are listed on the walls of the Menin Gate. The rest (all British who died in the salient after July 1917) are recorded on tablets in Tynecot Cemetery.

Almost all of the British/Dominion troops who died in the salient had marched out of Ypres through the Menin Gate of the old city walls. It seemed just to list the missing there and a memorial was commissioned after the war. It was entirely appropriate at its unveiling in 1927 when General Plumer (who had often commanded the forces in the Salient) declared "He is not missing, he is here!"

The Menin Gate -- looking into the town.

As a monument, the gate can easily overwhelm a visitor. Among the tens of thousands of names are West Indian blacks, Moslems, Buddhists, Sikhs and Hindus from British Indian Forces, while the Australian and Canadian names can probably account for representation from the rest of mankind.

The list from the 13th Battalion alone covers parts of four different panels (24, 26, 28 and 30), and is a longer list than that of any other Canadian battalion (my old Regiment which was carried as the 20th Battalion CEF in WW-1, only has 43 names carried on its portion). Its entry can be found in the stairwell on the south side of the gate.

Part of the 13th Battalion CEF listing -- including Pte. Conn, G.D.

Ypres remembers its defenders and gives their memory quiet respect every day.

Ever since the opening of the monument, the Ypres Fire Brigade sends three buglers to the gate every night of the year, regardless of weather conditions. At 8:00 PM, traffic through the gate is stopped and the trio play the "Last Post" -- the old call of the British Army that tells its soldiers that it is time to lay aside their duties and rest. I attended this simple ceremony each of the three nights I was at Ypres (in mid-December) and had expected to only see five or six other spectators. There were three or four hundred each time. In the summer, there may be thousands on a typical evening.

Postscript

According to the enrolment records of the Canadian Expeditionary Force in the First World War, John Conn made at least three attempts to enlist. Two of these attempts followed the death of his older brother and the final attempt in November 1916 (after his 16th birthday) was successful -- partly because of the significant lack of details on his form and a blatant lie about his age.

He was sent to France in early 1917 with the 230th Battalion of the CEF (which was mostly made up of men from the Quebec side of the Ottawa Valley), and from there was placed in one of the independent Forestry Companies. These were special units of Canadian laborers, tasked with forestry and quick construction of roads, railway beds and bridges. Usually in the rear areas, they often came forward into the range of German artillery to repair roads, distribute artillery ammunition before major attacks and help move casualties after them.

Repair crew at Hellfire Corner outside Ypres -- there are still huge piles of horse bones plucked out of nearby fields every year.

The Forestry Companies were also holding units for replacements before they were reassigned to the infantry battalions, and a place to lodge front-line soldiers who had clearly endured enough. As these units were occasionally combed for drafts of men to fill up the ranks, it may well have been that John was still deemed too young to go up the line and was spared -- not withstanding his phony birth date.

Many of the Canadian Forestry Companies were present in the rear areas of the Ypres Salient during the 3rd Battle -- the Passchendaele offensive of June to November 1917. It was quite possible that John marched up the same roads and sheltered in the same cellars that his brother had when he passed through the city 30 months earlier.

On December 13th, 2006; I managed to visit the general area -- now called Vancouver Corner -- where the 13th Battalion had endured its baptism of fire and, for all I know, may have passed within a few metres of where George was killed or his remains are hidden in the thick soil.

Latter, under the marble panel bearing his name on the Menin Gate, I left a wreath on which was written: To George Denholm Conn; in loving memory from the descendents of Neil and Roberta Conn.


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