Click here for images of Grampa Gallson’s WWI documents.
Below is information that Wayne sent me and I stored for the future.
The 52nd Battalion, 1915-1919
No sooner had Canada entered the war against Germany and its allies in 1914 than it was decided to raise an expeditionary force for battle overseas. The local militia, which mustered the day after war was declared, immediately began a recruiting drive to bring itself up to strength, and there was no shortage of men willing to fight. By March 1915 the 52nd battalion was formed as the first complete overseas battalion from this region of Ontario and, in short order, the 52nd had recruited 47 officers and 1,898 other ranks many of whom came from the old 96th. Before the war ended, more than 4,000 troops were to pass through the battalion.
Within days of arriving in France in February 1916 aboard a cattle boat, the 52nd moved to the front, and was thrust into battle at the Kemmel Sector in early March of that year. Over the next three years 140 officers and 2,819 other ranks were casualties in battles such as Mount Sorrel, Flers-Courcelette, Ancre Heights, Vimy Ridge, Avion, Hill 70, Passchendaele, Amiens, Damery, Scarpe, Drocourt-Queant, Canal du Nord, Cambrai, and Valenciennes. The survivors told stories of rat infested trenches, full of mud, of sleepless nights on ground sheets under single army blankets, and of ineffective rifles. One even recalled walking to the front without a helmet or gas mask, having been told to pick them up along the way from the casualties.
The Lake Superior’s (as they were affectionately known), had a reputation for independence and audacity; they would take a back seat for no one. Private W.C. Millar wrote of their encounter with the Imperial Grenadier Guards on a narrow road in the Ypres sector:
When seeing a bunch of trench-mud stained, unwashed Canadians coming along, the sergeant-major in charge of the Guards shouted out, in a voice which only an Imperial sergeant-major can assume, “Make way for the Guards, Make way for the Guards!!!”. Our lieutenant who, I have no doubt was seeing visions of a talk and possibly a bottle of champagne when we reached our billets, refused to be impressed, and made this characteristic reply: “To H–l with the Guards! Carry on, Fifty-second”. Needless to state the 52nd “carried on” and for once in their lives, the Guards took the side of the road for the Canadians.
The 52nd left France with 380 decorations, including a Victoria Cross won by Captain Christopher John Patrick O’Kelly at Passchendaele in 1917. Its battle honours were subsequently carried by Port Arthur’s Militia unit, the First Battalion, the Lake Superior Regiment.
Here’s where the 52nd Battalion sat in the heirarchy:
3rd Canadian Division
The 3rd Canadian Division joined the Canadian Corps in June 1916.
a.. 7th Brigade
a.. Royal Canadian Regiment
b.. Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry
c.. 42nd Battalion: Royal Highlanders of Canada
d.. 49th Battalion: Edmonton
a.. 8th Brigade
a.. 1st Canadian Mounted Rifles
b.. 2nd Canadian Mounted Rifles
c.. 4th Canadian Mounted Rifles
d.. 5th Canadian Mounted Rifles
a.. 9th Brigade
a.. 43rd Battalion: Cameron Highlanders
b.. 52nd Battalion: New Ontario Regiment
c.. 58th Battalion
d.. 116th Battalion: Ontario County Infantry
Grampa’s return from the war is interesting in that it lists what his position was. You can see his entry on the SS Olympic ship from Southampton to ____ (I’ll find it). He is listed as SPR, which is an acronym for a Sapper. Thanks to Wayne, I found out what a Sapper was.
I watched a movie once where the sappers were pushing bombs under the barbed wire with long poles attached to them with a string to fire it. Once they got the bomb under the barbed wire, they would pull the string and hope they blew up the barbed wire and not them selves. Some times the string would get hung up on something as they pushed it in and the bomb would go off and blow them up.
**Sap:the extension of a trench to a point beneath an enemy’s fortifications
Middle French /sapper/, from Old Italian /zappare/, from /zappa/ //”to make furrows with a hoe”
This is a link to a hoard of document Donna was able to get from …. somewhere …. regarding the 52nd Battalion which was Grampa Gallson’s Battalion (WWI). The order of them is not likely logical was Word exported the documents in alpha order. To be honest, I’m not sure what the first page would be.