Great War, R.I.P.

Today, November 11, 2018, marks the centennial of the end of the Great War (1914-1918), a horrendous conflict that erupted accidentally. Requiescant in pace.

Ancestral military service: In addition to my grandfather’s service during the Great War, my father, R.T.Fraser, served in the Second World War from 1940-1945. Further, my great-great grandfather, Hugh Fraser, served against Napoleon in the Peninsular War, c. 1810, and against the Americans in the War of 1812.

My grandfather, Thurlow Fraser, served in the Battle of the Somme (1916), was wounded, and was mentioned in dispatches for bravery. Further, many of his and his wife’s relatives were killed or wounded in the conflict, and he expected to be killed. Indeed, at one point, he bent over to help a wounded soldier and a bullet passed over his crouching body killing another person behind him.

Rev. Thurlow Fraser was 45 when he enlisted.

What is Thurlow Fraser’s connection to Kootenay Lake? It’s actually rather tenuous:

• He worked in Sandon (our local ghost town) in 1909;
• His brother, Sydney lived on the West Arm and gave rise to Fraser’s Landing, the ferry terminus (1931-1947), and to the extant Fraser Narrows;
• His cousin, Rob Fraser Langford gave Yasodhara its name (the site of the ashram).

But I live here, and that has to count for something. So, this is personal.

However, the point of this posting is to present what was a hand-written letter he sent from the front. It was a letter of sympathy addressed to the parents of Allan Bishop upon his death. (Allan was the cousin of the ace flier, Billy Bishop, after whom the Toronto City Airport is named.)

If the letter offers anything today, it is a poignant record of the horror of this century-old conflict. 

10th Canadian Inf. Battalion,
B. Es, France, 30-12-16

Dear Mr. & Mrs. Bishop:

I cannot let this year which has brought you so much sorrow, pass out without writing you a few words of sympathy on the loss of your son, Allan.

Although I was in the battle that day, Sept 26^th and probably not far from where he was, I did not hear about his being wounded until weeks afterwards. In a battle such as we had on Sept. 20^th, 26^th, 27^th, we know nothing of what is going on except what we are able to see with our own eyes. There is the continual roar of guns, so that we can only make a comrade hear by screaming in his ear. Shells are howling through the air and bursting all around us. Men whom we know, and men whom we do not know are being killed around us. On that day men who were so close to me that they were touching at the moment they were hit, were killed. The probability is that we will be next. We do not think of running away or even taking cover. Our work has to be done. So we go right on, doing whatever our hands find to do.

That day I saw some of my best friends wounded, and some killed. I chanced to be there at the moment, and was with them when they died. But, others were hit within two or three hundred yards of me, and I did not know it. One of my own nephews was corporal in charge of the signallers on a battery not over 200 yards from where I was, and I never knew he was there until I met him this week.

That is how it was with Allan. He was not far from where I was helping to care for the wounded. But I did not know it till weeks afterward.

I know what a blow it must have been to you. He was young, and his life full of promise. Yet it is just such lives that this war is taking all the time. It is reaping a harvest of the young before their time.

And yet short as these lives are, they have lived longest who have lived best, and died for what is worth while. I feel that those brave young fellows are dying for what is worth while. They feel it too. Much as they hate the war, and much as they would like to get home, they would rather go on fighting and taking their chances of getting killed, than see a premature peace which would simply bring in its train another war.

They all say that they would rather finish it now while they are at it than have to start over again.

I have had six nephews in it. One was killed in November; one was wounded about the same time and is in hospital. The other four are carrying on. Of six cousins of Mr. Fraser’s, who were here in April, there is now only one left. Three killed; one wounded and disabled; one a prisoner in Germany, one still fighting. I have so many other relatives in it that I have ceased trying to keep track of them. I know what this thing means. But, I would rather see it fought to a finish, than ending by a compromise which would leave things in the same bad old way.

I hope Howard is keeping well and safe. Of late I have been separated from the Owen Sound boys. So long as I was anywhere near there, I kept in touch with them. But of late that has been impossible. I do not even know where they are at present. Our units are forever shifting; and they are all with different divisions from what I am.

In your affection and sorrow, you have my deepest sympathy. May God comfort you, and give you strength to bear it.

I am
Yours sincerely
    Thurlow Fraser

Finally, I include his “Mentioned in Dispatches” signed by Winston Churchill.