Sunday 1 March 2015

Sunday March 1st, 2015 World War One Thunder Bay Centennial Project

TBPL is participating in an ever widening partnership project to remember the impact of the First World War in Thunder Bay. One of the benefits of this partnership is that it enables partners to share resources. For example, the First World War displays at the Brodie Resource Library include a military uniform and other materials loaned by the Thunder Bay Military Museum. The best example of this resource sharing can be found at the project website.


The Timeline section provides information from both the City Archives and TBPL telling you what was happening in Thunder Bay, month by month, 100 years ago. If you go to Life in Thunder Bay you can learn about Sport in the Lakehead, as contributed by the Northwestern Ontario Sports Hall of Fame. There is also a section on Arts and Culture, which includes local authors Stanley Rutledge, W.C. Millar and Robert Manion.


Stanley Rutledge was born in Fort William in 1889 and enlisted as a Private with the 4th University Company in Montreal in 1915. He sailed to England for further training and in March 1916 was sent to the trenches in Ypres. He transferred to the 28th Battalion to join his brother Wilfred. He spent a year in the 28th as a sniper and during this time he began describing his experiences and thoughts from the front in his letters home. He earned the rank of Lieutenant and joined the Royal Flying Corps as a qualified pilot. While providing instruction in Grantham he suffered a fatal aircraft accident in November 1917. His parents published his letters in book format, Pen Pictures from the trenches (1918), to share with others.


W.C. Millar’s book, From Thunder Bay Through Ypres with the Fighting 52nd  (1918), is a highly personal account of his amazing six months in combat with one of the most decorated Canadian battalions of the Great War. His is a first-hand account of the months of stalemate following the 2nd Battle of Ypres, a period when Canadian forces, under persistent attack, gained valuable tactical and command experience. With growing confidence, the men of the 52nd emerged full in the knowledge that, man-for-man, they were at least the equal of any military force in the world.


Robert  Manion, author of A Surgeon in Arms (1918), was born in Pembroke Ontario in 1881 and accepted into the Canadian Army Medical Corps at Ottawa with the rank of Lieutenant in March 1916. He became a Captain in April 1916 and embarked on the SS Olympic at Halifax with the Ontario Hospital contingent. In England he worked in two military hospitals before arriving in France in November 1916. He was attached to No1 Canadian General Hospital, No. 6 Canadian Field Ambulance, and 21st Battalion as Medical Officer. He was invalided to England and awarded the Military Cross. In December 1917 he was elected to Parliament as Unionist MP for the riding of Fort William.


The project website has information about Thunder Bay’s Military contribution to the war, including the role played by First Nations. There are photographs of the extensive collections held by the Thunder Bay Military Museum, which is well worth visiting. War related collections are also held by the Thunder Bay Museum and the Northwestern Ontario Aviation Heritage Centre, who are project partners.


The website highlights the contribution of local Industry and Technology to the war effort, such as the Canadian Car & Foundry (which built minesweepers), Copp Stove Co. Ltd., and Port Arthur Waggon Works (which secured a contract from the Canadian Government to build 85 specialty wagons to assist the 1st Contingent of Soldiers, Canadian Expeditionary Force).


If you have information, letters, diaries, artefacts or photographs related to WWI we would like to hear from you. Feel free to contact any one of the project partners or email us directly at ww1project@tbpl.ca.  


John Pateman

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