Review of Medicine And Duty: The World War I Memoir of Captain Harold W. McGill, Medical Officer, 31st  Battalion C.E.F., edited by Marjorie Barron Norris (University of Calgary Press, 2007) 382 pp. paper ISBN 1-55238-193-5  978-1-55238-193-9 $39.95 Indexed.

 

 

This is a literate, readable account of day-to-day events, based on first-hand diary entries. The working title of the first draft was “Reminiscences Of A Battalion M.O.” There is a photograph of the Officers Of the 31st Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force At Calgary, Alberta, dated February 1915.  From one of the original passenger lists still in McGill’s possession, he offers a list of the officers on board the Carpathia, “the ship that had rescued the survivors of the Titanic disaster a few years before.” (p. 49) Each of the twenty-four chapters is prefaced by quotations from Shakespeare: King Henry IV, part II,  and Act V, Scene V, Introduction; King John, Act IV, Scene III, Act V, Scene I, Macbeth, Act V, Scene IV,  Scene VI; King Henry V, Act II, Prologue, Act III, Scene V; King Henry V, Act II, Prologue; King Henry VI, Part I, Act III, Scene III, Part II, Act II, Scene IV, Part III, Act II, Scene V; Troilus and Cressida, Act IV, Scene V; Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene III; Anthony and Cleopatra, Act IV, Scene III; King Lear, Act III, Scene IV. In addition, there are other sources: Brete Harte, The Reville;  William Cullen Bryant, The Death of the Flowers; Edward Fitzgerald, Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam; Southey, The Battle of Blenheim; James Thomson, The Seasons; and John McRae, The Anxious Dead.

 

McGill (1880-1961) wrote: “We have heard a lot since of our boys going to war to end war for all time to come.  Personally I was never actuated by any such abstract idea, and I doubt very much if the idea ever occurred to a single one of the thousands who enlisted during the early months of the war…  Later, some of them may have thought that they had joined the colours on account of the ‘abolish war’ idea because of the appealing nature of the ideal; but, as I have said, I have the strongest doubt that a single solider ever enlisted from this motive.” (pp. 9-10).

 

McGill served as President of the Calgary Medical Society, the Calgary member of the Council of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta, and was one of the Alberta members on the Medical Council of Canada.   In 1926, he was elected to the Calgary City Council, where he served two terms.  In 1930, he became a Member of the Legislative Assembly.

 

According to the “Editor’s Introduction”, McGill was Deputy Superintendent General of Indian Affairs for Canada (1932-1938).  Following the amalgamation of the Department of Indian Affairs…, McGill became Director of Indian Affairs until his retirement in 1945. (p. xiii)  In the “Epilogue”, Premier R.B. Bennett, in 1932[?}, appointed McGill Deputy Superintendent General of Indian Affairs. “The Superintendence of Indian Affairs for Canada was a powerful position comparable to that of deputy minister.  He held that office for twelve years, until his retirement at age sixty-five.” (p.343)

 

McGill met and married a Calgary nurse Emma Griffis.  There is a photograph of her outside The Calgary General Hospital (p. 302). Their honeymoon was during the time- frame of the Battle of Arras. The onset of the great Spanish Flu pandemic was in 1918.  Emma was unable to find work “due to a debilitating bout of influenza” but they shared a holiday in 1919. They had two daughters, Kathleen and Doris.  Emma was a member of the Women’s Canadian Club and the Women’s Conservative Association.

 

McGill belonged to the 103rd Regiment Calgary Rifles, when the war began; in 1914, he was thirty-four years of age. He returned from the war in 1919.  The present memoir deals with his service to the Alberta 31st Battalion, from its barracks at the Calgary Exhibition Grounds, to the Second Battle of Loos; the Battle of Sanctuary Wood; the Battle of the Somme; and Vimy Ridge (the Canadian Army’s taking of the Ridge, in 1917).  Then he was transferred to the 5th Field Ambulance, before Passchendale; the Battle of Amiens; and the Last Hundred Days.

 

A “Foreword”, by Patrick H. Brennan, Centre for Military and Strategic Studies, contains suggestions for future reading, whether scholarly or front-line accounts by the participants.  McGill’s is not “the best recollection of the war by an ordinary Canadian soldier”, an honour which Brennan accords to The Journal of Private Fraser: 1914-1918, edited by Reginald H. Roy.   However, McGill’s memoir “effectively complements [it]. (notes 1 and 2, p. vii)

 

This is the first publication of the memoir, albeit heavily edited (or at least condensed and abbreviated), with generous footnotes. The Glenbow Archives contains McGill letters (1915-1919).  Some of them have been reproduced here.  In McGill’s “Letter to Frances McGill” (his sister who was also a doctor) dated 10 October 1915, he commented on the Tour of Duty (pp.95-97). There is a copy of a handwritten letter from McGill to Emma Griffis, (15 April 1916), in which he described The Battle of St. Eloi. (pp. 158-160). In McGill to Emma Griffis, dated 5 February 1916, “Harold Answered Emma’s Queries Relating To Trench Duty And Army Rations, And Gave News Of Mutual Acquaintances Now Overseas” (pp. 132-137). Another letter (12 December, 1918), was sent to Harold McGill, from Ben Jones’ Brother Thomas Llewellyn Jones (pp. 213-216).  There is A Letter from McGill to Birdie Stacey dated 13 April 191), (pp. 273-275).  McGill wrote to Emma Griffis, on 12 July 1917, “At 11.20 p.m. Harold Penned His First ‘Love Letter’ To Emma” (pp. 305-307).

 

Norris, a writer and historian who lives in Calgary, is the author of A Leaven of Ladies: A History of the Calgary Local Council of Women and Sister Heroines: The Roseate Glow of Wartime Nursing, 1914-1918.  Janice Dickin is the series editor for the Legacies Shared Series, of which this title is number 23.  The avowed purpose is to create, save, and publish voices from the heartland of the continent that might otherwise be lost to the public discourse.

 

In addition to the Epilogue, the text contains maps; illustrations; some black-and-white photographs. There are “McGill’s Summary Of  Casualties In The Two September Actions” (September 15 and September 26) (p. 228); a checklist of “our casualties during the main action of Vimy Ridge, April 9 and 10 (p. 281). By May 13, McGill records casualties again (p. 286).  An appendix of  “31st Battalion Casualties [from November 14, 1914] To November 11, 1918” is annotated with Number, Rank, Name, Causes DOAI (accidental injury); DOD (disease); DOW (drowned); KIA (Killed in Action); MPD (Missing Presumed Dead); and Awards.

 

A Chronology of Events and Biographical Milestones would have been helpful for the casual reader.

                                                 

Anne Burke