Trench. The barrage commenced at 10:00 a.m., and the machine guns spat lead continuously for the next six hours, and then provided continuing covering fire through the night until dawn of the following day. Captain Meurling, the commanding officer, reported: “It is impossible for me to lay too much stress on the enthusiasm, endurance and general good behaviour of both men and officers during the whole of these trying 36 hours, out of which 24 hours were spent under practically continuous firing.”93 These men, he noted, had already been on the line for five to six days before the offensive began. Heavy enemy shelling of their positions did not make their assignment any easier. Three of their guns were put out of action when two emplacements and a dugout were blown up. Miraculously, there were no casualties.
Captain Meurling praised his men for their ability to work the guns when under intense fire: “As long as any of them are left to teach the new ones our infantry will never lack the support that M/Guns, when properly handled, can give them, both before during and specially after a battle”94 By November 19, they had expended 550,000 rounds of ammunition during this engagement.
Compared to the preceding months, which were filled with constant combat duty, the Yukon Motor Machine Gun Battery spent a quiet December, based at Divion, 25 kilometres from Vimy on the front. They did active duty laying down fire at La Folie Farm, perched near the top of Vimy Ridge, and adjacent roads, followed by time spent behind the line recovering and resting. Belt filling, machine gun instruction and drills occupied much of their time. On December 13, Captain Meurling and the Yukon men were decorated with the Military Medals they had earned in the battle at Grandcourt Trench the month before. Several men from the Yukon Battery were singled out for recognition: Privates David Roulston, Harry Walker and Ernest Peppard, as well as Corporal Anthony Blaikie and Sergeant Frank McAlpine. Sergeant McAlpine was not available to receive his medal, as he had returned to England to train for a commission.
Harry Walker was a good example of a Yukon volunteer. Raised in Victoria, British Columbia, he came north during the early days of the gold rush and was engaged in mining on Sulphur Creek. In the spring of 1915, he joined the 2nd Canadian Mounted Rifles, subsequently transferring to the armoured motor battalion. Walker was awarded the Military Medal for his “devotion to duty displayed when he assembled a machine gun under heavy fire” during the November 19 offensive:
In the midst of a heavy bombardment of the British Lines by enemy guns, Private Walker and two of his comrades, showing utter contempt for the existing danger, moved out into the open and assembled their machine gun at a point where the fire could be effectively directed against the German positions. Just as they got the gun properly mounted a German shell buried itself in the ground immediately in front and undid their work by disarranging and burying some of the parts. In the face of all hazards they managed to secure the parts, put them together again and were eventually able to operate the gun against the enemy with telling effect.95
Christmas came and went and the Boyle men were able to enjoy a belated Christmas feast on December 28. They had been initiated with a baptism of lead, gas and steel. They had proven themselves in battle; many had received decorations for their courageous actions. By war’s end, nineteen had been decorated, but thirteen had paid the supreme sacrifice, and others were casualties unable to continue in combat. They didn’t know it, but yet to come were some of the most brutal battles of the war: Vimy, Passchendaele, Amiens and the Hundred Days Offensive. Only a handful of the original fifty would remain in uniform by the armistice.
The Black Contingent
“Month by month I could see that George was growing more restless,” wrote Martha Black about her husband, the commissioner of the Yukon. In her diary, she noted:
George has just come in and told me he has to enlist—that he cannot stand it any longer, seeing our men go away, while he sits in his office and we have the comfort of this beautiful home.
Of course, there’s nothing for me to do but to act as though I like it. It will be a wrench—to leave this lovely place. There’s the dreadful anxiety of our future, too. What will this horrible war bring forth? I dare not think of it. Yet why should I hesitate or try to keep him back? Thousands, yes, millions, already have suffered the horrors of this terrible war for over a year.96
But his decision was not as impulsive as his wife presented. The decision to raise a company of Yukon volunteers and act upon it took more than a year to bring to realization, and it was almost three years before he and his comrades saw action overseas.
In late September of 1915, Black sent a lettergram to Sam Hughes, the minister of militia and defence, offering to raise a company of volunteers—an offer that Hughes was quick to accept.97 George Black came from United Empire Loyalist stock and it would have been difficult for him not to join the cause in support of Britain in the war effort. Black had left his home and his new law practice in Fredericton, New Brunswick, in 1898 and headed west and north for the Klondike with tens of thousands of others. He discovered gold on Livingstone Creek, north of Whitehorse, and after a couple of years of mining in that area, he went to Dawson and once again established a law practice.
George Black acquired a reputation as a good criminal lawyer, one who could take hopeless cases and deliver a verdict favourable to his clients. His opponents acknowledged his ability to pull off a victory in the courts in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. A lifelong Conservative, George had campaigned for George Eulas Foster, one of Ottawa’s most respected politicians, while he was a young man articling for Foster in Fredericton. He worked with others in the Yukon to organize the Conservative Party in the territory and campaigned fiercely to place Dr. Alfred Thompson in the Yukon seat in the House of Commons. Black was elected to the territorial council for three consecutive terms, and when he went to greener pastures in Vancouver, bc, around 1910, he became active in politics there. In 1911, he was campaign manager for H.H. Stevens’s successful bid in Vancouver for election to the House of Commons. Because the Yukon held a deferred election, Black was able to return to the territory and campaign for Dr. Thompson as well. Both candidates were elected to a majority government and Black, now with numerous political credit notes in his pocket, was appointed the commissioner of the territory in February of 1912. Black was only the second man from the territory, not from Outside, appointed to this position.
A dozen years before, George had met and married Martha Munger Purdy, an American woman from a wealthy Chicago family. Martha embraced her new role without hesitation, adopting not only George’s country but his religion and his politics as well. Together, they formed a formidable partnership that lasted more than fifty years. Martha Black was no shrinking violet, and together they tramped the mountains and valleys of the Yukon on hunting and camping trips. Martha was also schooled in the social graces and had once taken tea in the White House. Whatever George became involved in, Martha did too.
In October 1915, George and Martha travelled to the east on family business, but before he left Dawson, George spoke to the British Empire Club, where there was discussion of raising a Yukon corps for regular drills in preparation for enlistment in the expeditionary force, if necessary. Accompanied by Dr. Thompson, the Yukon MP, he met with an enthusiastic Sam Hughes in Ottawa about his intention to not only raise a company of volunteers but to join as well, and obtain his commission as captain. Robert Rogers, minister of the interior, welcomed Black’s offer and would facilitate his desire to serve with his fellow Yukoners. George planned to take his officer’s course either at Victoria or in the military college at Kingston, Ontario. He would decide once he had consulted with Colonel Ogilvie, the officer in command of the British Columbia military division.98
While in Ottawa, Commissioner and Mrs. Black were entertained by the Governor General of Canada and his wife, the Duke and Duchess of Connaught. The duchess and her daughter, Princess Patricia, were filled with questions about life in the North, while the duke expressed his regret at not having been able to visit the region. Before heading home, George visited the Montreal headquarters of the Canadian Patriotic
