Year: 2017
Type: paratext
Abstract: Late in and following the Great War, many Canadian regiments set about preparing their wartime histories, while memories were fresh.These were usually written by veterans.There were two early birds in the 4th Canadian Division's 11th Brigade, to which the 75th (Mississauga) Battalion belonged.The 54th (British Columbia) Battalion, keen to give the men a printed keepsake, produced a short history while billeted in Belgium in 1919; the 102nd (North British Columbians) Battalion's history appeared in October 1919.Both books relied heavily on the War Diary, a daily record of happenings in a war zone that every battalion had to keep.In the 1920s, with time for proper gathering and assessment of information, a spate of regimental histories emerged.In 1923 came Lieutenant Professor Ralph Hodder-Williams's lavishly illustrated two volumes about the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry (PPCLI), published in England by the author's family's firm Hodder and Stoughton; in 1925, Robert C. Fetherstonhaugh's volume on the 13th Battalion Royal Highlanders; and in 1925, Sir Andrew Macphail's history of the Canadian Army Medical Services.The next year brought Captain S.G.Bennett's account of the 4th Canadian Mounted Rifles and Fetherstonhaugh's of the 14th (Royal Montreal) Battalion.As thorough and beautifully produced as Hodder-William's PPCLI volumes was Lieutenant-Colonel H.M. Urquhart's The History of the 16th Battalion in the Great War 1914War -1919War (1932)).That same year, Kim Beattie's 48th Highlanders of Canada, 1891-1928 covered the regiment's beginnings and its history through the Great War, during which it raised and supplied soldiers for the 15th, 92nd, and 134th Battalions overseas.Major D.J. Corrigall released his history of the 20th Battalion in 1935.These histories and others from the period covered events and personalities in great detail, illuminating these units' experiences in the Great War.
Author: Timothy J. Stewart
Language: English
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4391373497
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