Post by ocelot on May 9, 2007 18:16:15 GMT -5
Death of veteran Dwight Wilson leaves one known surviving Cdn vet from WW1
TORONTO (CP) - Dwight Wilson's dogged determination to join his countrymen in the trenches of the First World War drove him to enlist not once, but twice, despite news reports chronicling the "horrendous" conflict being waged in Europe.
Wilson, who was diverted from the frontlines because he was a minor, died Wednesday. He was 106.
Wilson's death leaves only one known surviving Canadian veteran of the First World War - 106-year-old John Babcock, who lives in Spokane, Wa.
"All these guys who signed up realized there were risks involved, especially by 1916," his son, Paul Wilson, said of the generation of young men who volunteered to serve despite horrific battlefield losses.
Ten per cent of the roughly 600,000 Canadians who enlisted to fight in the First World War died on the battlefields of Europe - 170,000 more were wounded.
The war would ultimately claim 15 million civilian and military lives on both sides of the conflict.
"I think maybe in 1914, when the war broke out, some of the young boys signing up thought it would be a lark," said Wilson. "By 1916, there had been thousands upon thousands of them just killed. They had some horrendous battles."
It was in that climate that a 15-year-old Wilson, who had served as a bugler in the 9th Mississauga Horse militia a year earlier, headed overseas in the fall of 1916 despite his parents' objections.
"There aren't many of them left, are there?" Wilson said in November 2006 when asked how it felt to be one of the few remaining veterans of the First World War.
"I was a kid," Wilson said of his experience. He recalled that his singing went "over big" with his fellow soldiers in England.
Wilson, who sang semi-professionally after the war, charmed reporters who visited him at the veterans' wing of Toronto's Sunnybrook Hospital last November with a surprisingly powerful rendition of "If I Loved You."
"I love to sing and I'll sing anywhere," he said.
Just how a determined, yet underage, Wilson soldier found himself enlisted in active service remains a bit of a mystery.
"I don't know if he really lied about his age, or whether someone fudged it," said Paul Wilson. "This is 1916. The best troops in Europe and the Allies had already been cut to pieces. I think they were scrambling."
Following basic training in Petawawa, Ont., Wilson was shipped to England with the 69th Battery out of Toronto.
"It was a two-week trip across the Atlantic, zig-zagging to avoid the German submarines," said his son. "He was sea sick most of the way."
It was while awaiting orders to the frontline that Wilson's commanding officer discovered his true age, and put the young soldier to work digging defensive trenches in the south of England.
Wilson, already earning a reputation among his colleagues for his frequent singing while he worked, was sent back to Canada in January 1917 and discharged as a minor.
He managed to re-enlist in the 69th Battery in April. Four months later, Wilson was discharged as a minor yet again while stationed in Petawawa.
"I never got to France, and I was a bit disappointed at the time," Wilson said in a published newspaper article in 2005.
Regardless of never seeing the front, Wilson and the thousands of other underaged Canadians who were held back from battle are to be commended, said historian and author Jack Granatstein.
"To my mind, the fact that they were there as volunteers is sufficient," said Granatstein, who along with Wilson's son was interviewed last year for this article.
"They are representative of their era, and as such they deserve that recognition."
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said the sacrifices and "remarkable bravery" of Wilson and his comrades is a lesson for all.
Babcock, now the last known surviving Canadian veteran of the Great War, emigrated to the United States in the 1920s, serving a brief stint in the U.S. military. An avid golfer, Babcock hit the links in September 2006 with his second wife and managed to play a round. While he lacked the balance to putt, he was still able to drive.
In the war years, Babcock joined 1,300 other underaged soldiers in England and was drilled eight hours a day, always with an eye on reaching the front. By October 1918, the then 18-year-old Babcock was awaiting training that would send him to the battlefields of France. One month later, the Armistice had been signed.
Wilson met his wife, Eleanor Dean, a singer, while he was studying music at the Royal Conservatory after the war, and he often entertained staff and fellow residents at his long-term care home with his rich baritone voice.
Wilson eventually joined Bell Canada because it had a singing group, and he stayed with the phone company for 47 years before retiring in 1966.
Wilson never lost his love for the military, or his desire to fight for his country, and signed up again for military service during the Second World War after he had moved his wife and children to Stratford, Ont.
"He was too old for active duty, but he still rose to the rank of captain" in Stratford's 1st Regiment Reserves, recalled Paul of his father's last attempt to get into the fighting overseas.
Wilson, whose wife died in 1993 just after their 60th wedding anniversary, spent his final years at the veteran's residence at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto.