Research...

     


So the other day, for a reason that will become apparent, I wanted to learn about someone- J. C. Abbott. I was trained to be an historian, but back before the internet when everything was on paper, in books or microfilm, in libraries or institutions. It took me only an hour to find this stuff out. 

     

     He was born in Winnipeg, Canada in 1896- six years younger than my grandfather. By the time he was 18, he was working as a cabinetmaker in Vancouver, B. C. His home was in Cloverdale with is parents- his mother’s name was Katherine, but she went by Kate. He was 5 feet 8 1/2 inches tall, fair haired with grey eyes and a small scar above his left eye. We know all this because on November 19, 1914, he signed on to the Canadian Expeditionary Force’s 29th Battalion- raised by a Vancouver lawyer, Henry Tobin. 

     James Curtis Abbott, now # 75042, embarked on May 20, 1915 with the rest of “Tobin’s Tigers” aboard the steam ship Missanabie and ultimately on to France. He and his mates were lucky, Missanabie and 45 men were torpedoed and went to the bottom in 1918.

     He would have worn a cap badge like this one. 

     I even found his picture! 

     The 29th were a fighting regiment, staying on the Western Front right through the war. With a full strength of about a thousand soldiers, over 4300 men served in the battalion during the war. About 600 were killed and 1400 more were wounded, not good odds at all for the originals. 

     Their battle honours are a list of awfulnesses- 

MOUNT SORREL

• SOMME, 1916, ’18
• Flers-Courcelette
• Thiepval
• Ancre Heights
• ARRAS, 1917, '18
• Vimy, 1917
• Scarpe, 1917, '18
• HILL 70
• Ypres 1917
• Passchendaele
• AMIENS
• HINDENBURG LINE
• Drocourt-Quéant
• Canal du Nord
• Cambrai, 1918
• PURSUIT TO MONS
• FRANCE AND FLANDERS, 1915–18

    Private Abbott was assigned to “A” company, which must have been a good outfit- as witnessed by this incident after another Battalion was so shot up as to require its dissolution.

     Private Abbott stayed a private soldier- he earned a good conduct badge and the little extra pay that came with it. He stayed lucky with diseases and flying steel, too- went to hospital with the ‘flu a couple of times and caught a bullet in the left arm at Hill 70 in the same action where Sergeant Hanna over in "D" company won the Victoria Cross.

      Maybe Abbott is in one of these pictures of 29th men in and out of action: 

     I did all this research on Wednesday, that’s the 7th of August. Thanks to the Canadian National Archives, the war diaries of the 29th are digitised- no trip to Ottawa required. I wondered what was happening exactly a century ago?

     Hmm. Let’s look at these appendices....

     Well! I can put a face to that spot, having driven through Rosieres many times. The Major is very matter of fact about the “Too late, chum” on those Boche, isn’t he? The 29th’s brigade mates in the 28th originated the term “too dead to be used as prisoners”, perhaps a pattern is emerging. 

     And Lieutenant Burridge  in “D” likes to provide some atmosphere-  I think C. T. C. channels him-

     But we're interested in Abbott-  did “A” company leave a report? Yes it did- 

  

     Today is August 11, 2018.  11-8-18, as a Canadian would write it-

     So, why did I have this interest? On Wednesday, I bought 

          James Curtis Abbott’s watch. Undoubtedly he was carrying it at Rosieres, and a hundred years ago today it began its journey to me from Rouen hospital. Sometimes an object can take you places all by itself. Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Abbot and James Curtis Abbott.

November 11 2014

 

   We went to  the terrible thinga couple of days ago. I had never seen it from a distance, the only other visit was in fog. On a clear day Lutyens' effect is even more aweful. From a distance, it looks tiny and playful, like some sort of chinoiserie folly.  As one drives up it grows and grows, but it still is just a massive, vast ornament without a clear purpose.

   Not until you're within thirty yards or so, when the whole thing is so big the eyes' field can't hold it and its massiveness oppresses, do the names just pop into view.

   Astounding.

   But today, we went to Vauxbuin which is a French  ,  British , and German cemetery.  And although they were removed and buried elsewhere, Americans from Company D were killed right here on July 19, 1918 pushing the Germans- some in this cemetery- off the road we parked on.

   The stones put three thoughts in my head today.

   Mrs. Gartside-Tipping's reminded me that there are all sorts of people who volunteer to help in an emergency, even patrician old widow ladies whose (twenty year over age for service but volunteered anyway at age 67) husbands vanished into the icy sea the year before. And that soldiers losing their minds is not just ripped from the headlines.


  

   The French graves of men from (L-R) Morocco,  Madagascar, and Somalia made me think about how bewildering the European diaspora, and the diasporas it spawned, are.

   And finally I am sure that many of the Jewish tombstones in the German cemetery name fathers, who in their minds served and died to protect their children from a foreign menace.

   How savage we are.

Armistice day 2013...

On 11/11 at 11:00, I found myself at the Oise-Aisne American Cemetery.

A couple of miles away I passed through Fere-en-Tardenois.  Great minds 

 

 think alike, that was the scene in the town square at the memorial. They even had the band.

Even though it's full of places like this

 

most of the names in the visitor's books at U. S. cemeteries now

are French. They remember.

It was as pretty a day as you could hope for- cool and clear.  As usual, the cemetery was immaculate. I hope it is a long time until we abandon these places.

     The capitals on the columns were planned by men who lived the war:

 

     Only  some Doughboy would have thought to include a can of corned Bill in this monument for Posterity.

     Alas I did not have my camera, just a telephone one so none of my tombstone pictures came out. A few things struck me as I strolled the lanes.

     A lot of the death dates are in 1919. The war ended on the 11th, but peritonitis, burn infection,  ordnance disposal, truck wrecks, and the 'flu kept going.

     There are several civilians, probably YMCA workers or some such.

     Interesting to see so many now obsolete ranks. I saw stevedore, bugler, wagoner, chauffeur, field clerk, and some others.

       We forget the uniting force of the War. This  cemetery holds mainly draftees.  Everyone got drafted- white and black, English speaker and Bohunk. Americans still practiced all sorts of segregation and all sorts of prejudice were standard. The foul creature Wilson led the way, racially segregating the Civil Service to please his Democratic Party base in the Solid South.  Yankee aristocrats and West Virginia miners and Mississippi sharecroppers would have never met in ordinary 1914 life.

     Here they are together, indiscriminately. It took a while to live up to it, but our country looks like this graveyard now.

     The names were interesting. Only about half had middle names or initials. Lots of Williams and Johns and Roberts, of course. My companion and I remarked on the names one never hears now, redolent of obscure Bible stories and the mountains of Bohemia.  And there were several short versions- I saw Charley, Mike, and Jack. And Joyce, too.

     Which led  me to a new sad thought.

     Of course all these men had stories that they never got to finish. Every one of them had a goal, a plan. Start a business.  Go back to the mill and work up to foreman. Teach at the school. Build up the family farm.  Take a correspondence course. Marry the girl. Play catch with the boy.  Go fishing with the Old Man or eat Mother's peach cobbler.  Shoot craps with the fellows on the corner. Sit under a tree on a hot day and chew on a blade of grass.

     Not one of those dreams happened.

     Every one of these men started a telegram, and with it a new batch of stories. Every one of those telegrams had one of these names on it.

      Where did they get Charley and Giovanni and Asa? The same way we get our Jamal and Chip. 

      Every one of those names was chosen carefully by proud parents for their perfect little son, their hope.

      Let's use uncle's name.  Daniel is fine, a brave Prophet.  Alright, we'll call him after YOUR father. Jövünk Magyarországról, de mi hívjuk George Washington elnök után.  You're my best pal, will you stand up at the christening?

     And all those mothers and fathers saw all those names on all those telegrams.

     Everyone who votes for a war, everyone who cheerleads for one, should have to do it from a place like this.

     Oh, and one more thing. We were there for an hour and a half.

          Had the place to ourselves.

        

Armistice Day...

A misty, cool morning

to visit one of the most terrifying things man has made.

The Thiepval Memorial.
At 11-11-11, a memorial service with all sorts and conditions of people.


The names' contemporaries were the old people of my childhood. It is good to know they are



Every one of the dead is named. And each had a trio of unnamed companions- one totally crippled, one only somewhat injured for life, and a widow or orphan. So it is worse than just epitaphs.

No more mass graves this trip.

Quick Thinking Norwegian Teens Take Down Killer...

"We knew we were on our own" is often repeated by young heroes talking about their successful resistance to a killer on Norway's Utoya Island, near Oslo, site of the Scandinavian kingdom's worst mass murder ever with 34 people dead.

The island was at the time the venue of a Labour Party youth conference. But the holiday atmosphere turned to horror when a man in Police uniform appeared and began shooting the campers.
"At first he asked some of us to come over to him, when we did he started shooting at us. I saw several of my friends hit, then a bullet hit me and knocked me down." said one injured witness.

According to another teenager on the scene, "As soon as he started shooting, everyone ran for shelter. We had all been through the active shooter resistance class at school, and since we could get away, we did."

Then, witnesses say, the killer began to stalk his victims. According to another of the teens, "He just walked along the shore, and when he would find someone hiding he would kill them. We were all behind some rocks a few yards inland from the beach, and he was coming our way. "Hilda" (name changed) was beside me, and she said, "He's killing our friends! It's an island, we can't just wait until he kills everybody!".

According to this witness, "Hilda" suggested that the small group of teens fight back when the killer approached. "We learned in school that these murderers are in a high state of stress and are usually as incompetent at violence as they are at life, so resistance generally stops them. So Hilda suggested that we distract him and then attack from another direction".

"She said that we should gather up stones, and we did. Then she said she would run out from one side of the boulders we were behind, and the rest of us should attack him from the other when he saw her. "Gustav", who is 18, said he should do the running, since he was the 400 meter hurdle champion at his school, and he and "Hilda" argued over it. But she is not very fast and only 14, so we all told her to let him."

"When the man came close, watching along the shoreline, we counted down and "Gustav" took off. The man was startled to see him and pointed his rifle at "Gustav". "Hilda" said "NOW!" and she charged."

"The man shot at "Gustav" who was running in a serpentine pattern. It was about 40 meters from us to the killer, so he got a couple of shots off before "Hilda's" yelling distracted him again. She threw her rocks as she ran, the rest of us did too, and before he could get his gun pointed at us we were on him. Six of us piled on him and it was like Gulliver, we just buried him."

"Gustav" came back and joined in. We held the man down even though he struggled. We took his guns away, and a couple of us who have similar guns at home carried them some distance away and put them on the ground so no one would think they were the murderer. Other people helped the wounded. We waited for the Police and they took the man away."

Police arrived at the island crime scene about an hour and a half after a gunman first opened fire, slowed because they didn’t have quick access to a helicopter and then couldn’t find a boat to make their way to the scene just several hundred yards offshore.

The killer was taken into custody and according to sources treated for multiple fractures and dislocations.


Isn't that better than "Survivors of the shooting spree have described hiding and fleeing into the water to escape the gunman, but a police briefing Saturday detailed for the first time how long the terror lasted — and how long victims waited for help"?

How do you say "United 93, motherf*cker!" in Norwegian?

I am a tremendous advocate for teaching children, because it's true, that

"Five or six seventh-grade kids and a 95-pound art teacher can basically challenge, bring down and immobilize a 200-pound man with a gun."

Just like a bunch of farmers can drive off a King.

A Striking Memorial...

One thing that's always a bit of a surprise about hunting this forest is the amount of war reminders one happens on. Several times I have mentioned physical artifacts, and the immense cemeteries are terrifying. But memorials are EVERYWHERE.




Some are impressive and huge, like this one in Compiegne, reflecting ts subject:


But all aviators weren't famous, and to me the most moving are the little ones, from both German wars, usually at the site of an airplane crash. This is for an English air crew, but put up by the French:




More often they commemorate just the lone pilot. Sometimes truly in the middle of the woods, and all different- not some standard cookie cutter design. I've never seen one even slightly overgrown or in poor repair, even when there's not a path to approach it.

This is the most elaborate one I've found. The little roofed board has a picture of the flier with his friends, and some other information. His engine and wing remain from the crash.




He does, too.



It's been icy cold here for a week, those three bouquets of flowers are fresh and bear no politican's name.

I get very angry when I hear an American denigrate the efforts French people made to stop the Hun. This man wanted his next breath just as much as any paratrooper on D-1, and his family grieved for him, smashed and roasted in these lonely woods.

Merci, Lieutenant Monty. And to whoever cuts the woods back to keep your memory green.

The Japanese Way of Capital Punishment...

This BBC article about the recent execution of two murderers gave me a few thoughts.

"Ms Chiba (the Justice Minister and an opponent of the death penalty) said that as justice minister she believed it was her duty to witness the executions in person."

Good. I wonder if she considers it her duty to go to homicide scenes, autopsies, and notification of families of murder victims?

"Prisoners are not told when they will be executed and their relatives are told only after the sentence has been carried out."

Exactly like the people they killed. Seems fair.

(Sorry, up all night on a murder.)

One Of My Very Favorite Hunting Stories...

Someone asked me that question again today. I have maybe five pieces of short hunting literature that really speak to and for me, and this is one of them.

Click on each page to make it big enough to read conveniently:

One reason I like this is that it's very evocative of some early days in my own hunting life. I never went out as young as the narrator of this story, or with family. But the scene and style put me right back in the old Fairfield days. Up at four, loading Tango into the trailer and chugging up to Newtown in that old Matador, getting in first of all in the chill black New England dark. Trying like crazy to be where Rhoda wanted me to be, when she wanted me there, doing what she wanted me to do. Scampering over those big Yankee stone walls in the dawn, and spending the day in a wild blur.

There's cable now, and lots of channels to ghost.

All the other things going on in my life then, all the other dawn experiences- having grown up responsibilities, living far away from home in a very different place, having seriously important friends, happily drowning in a huge (and I then had reason to believe) somewhat reciprocated crush. And doing all those things- having all those successes- as nobody, from nowhere.

Good times. I'm glad I didn't break my neck, but if I had, it would have been with a big old smile.


I'm sorry, Fox. But thanks.