Only these traces remain

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This article was published 10/11/2010 (5466 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

CAMP HUGHES — Time, like soldiers, marches on.

Thousands of Canadian soldiers died in the Great War — said at the time to be the war to end all wars — but in the decades since the end of the First World War, age and mortality have done to the surviving veterans what an enemy’s bullet didn’t do. It’s just a few months since the last Canadian veteran of that war breathed his last.

But before Ypres, before the Somme, before Vimy, thousands of soldiers who fought in these battles trained in trenches made to look and feel like the ones they would soon be in.

And that place was in Manitoba, just south of the Trans-Canada Highway, on a turnoff near the Camp Shilo exit.

With Remembrance Day almost upon us, a group of military historians and people of the community are not only working to preserve Camp Hughes, but are hopeful a request made almost a year ago will lead to the area being named a national historic site.

Now only a herd of cattle grazes while prairie dogs dig and the only danger is the cow-pies on the ground. But the former training camp still has the remnants of the extensive trench systems used for First World War training, including front-line, support fire and communication trenches, dugouts and fire bays. It also features a grenade pit, rifle range and main camp.

"Anyone who has been there and walked in the trenches, walks out differently," says Bruce Tascona, president of the Military Historical Society of Manitoba, during a recent tour of the site.

"I don’t know how anyone could argue against it being a national historic site. It’s unique."

Tascona said the site is in increasing danger. Cattle were seen as the biggest threat in the last few decades, but now it is the ever-closer housing developments with the possibility of ATVs tearing across the site. It’s why the historical group says the first thing that has to be done is to fence off the most sensitive sites.

Wayne Blair, mayor of the nearby town of Carberry, is excited when he discusses the possibilities for Camp Hughes.

"I’m hoping we are able to restore a portion of the trenches back to their original state," Blair said.

"And I’d like to see it all cleaned out a little better so it’s easier to walk through the trenches… this is a huge potential tourist attraction, especially with the Air Museum and 26th Field (Artillery Regiment) in Brandon and the museum at CFB Shilo."

Blair said it looks like a deal has been struck to allow tourists access to the site during July and August. A cattle farmer who has the lease on the Crown land would continue to use it the rest of the year.

Recently a Free Press reporter and photographer took a tour of the remnants of Camp Hughes. Here’s what we found:

Trenches:

Most people might have an idea from movies what a trench looks like: a long parallel line dug in the earth with ladders at the front part to aid soldiers getting ready to "go over the top" and attack the enemy.

Turns out they’re wrong.

As we walk through the two front-line trenches, called the front-line fire trench and the support fire trench, it quickly becomes obvious they’re not straight, but veer left and right at several points in case defensive positions are needed.

"There are more trenches here than left at the national battlefield site at Vimy Ridge," Tascona said. "There are 10 kilometres of trenches here."

Tascona said the trenches were designed to accommodate 1,000 soldiers at a time. They were built with room to shield soldiers from enemy fire while marching to the front trenches and also included dugouts with earth overhead to shelter the soldiers.

During each 24-hour training session, the troops would enter one of two long communication trenches, get issued food and ammunition and march forward through the zigzagging trenches. They would then spend a typical day in the trenches, working as sentries and on listening posts, clearing the trenches of enemy forces, then leaving the forward trenches to launch a frontal assault on the enemy.

Today, the sides of the trenches are rounded by the effects of weather, cattle and undergrowth. In one section of trenches, fir trees have popped up from the trench depression.

The trenches were constructed more than two metres deep, but now, some are a mere 12 centimetres deep.

Camp Hughes’ terrain was perfect for mimicking the trenches in Europe, even allowing the "German" trenches to occupy the higher ground, Tascona said. The "German" trenches are not as involved as the "Allied" trenches, merely a single trench line, just enough for the soldiers to train to fight the enemy.

Standing in no-man’s land, Tascona said the soldiers "waited for the bombardment to stop and then they heard a whistle."

"You can feel how exposed you are up here. They just walked forward. They didn’t run. And they were only 150 yards from the enemy trench. They are laced with machine-guns. They didn’t have a chance."

Rifle range:

Tascona said the rifle range, with 500 targets, also marked a change in training standards for soldiers from the Boer War to the First World War.

He said that before the First World War, soldiers were trained to accurately shoot at targets up to 1,200 yards away.

But more than a year into the conflict, military leaders knew that with each side mired in trench warfare on the western front, with troops from both sides only 150 yards away from each other, the standards could be changed — starting for the first time with the new rifle range at Camp Hughes — so the soldiers only had to qualify on targets 400 yards away.

Another benefit, albeit a poignant one as it turns out, is that it takes much less time to train a recruit to shoot 400 yards than 1,200 yards — and the new soldiers were needed quickly.

"All the professional soldiers have already died on the front and they needed to be replaced," Tascona said.

Every time it rains and more soil washes away, a few more of the thousands of .303-calibre bullets that were fired here become exposed. Most of the rifle range is behind a fence and inaccessible because it is part of the neighbouring CFB Camp Shilo.

Grenade pit:

Here there is a large depression in the ground where, a few metres away, training soldiers would lob grenades.

Tascona said they have found remnants of four different types of grenades, along with pieces of corrugated steel behind which the troops sheltered themselves from the explosion.

Just a few metres away, there are a few slit trenches, which American soldiers called foxholes, which Canadian troops used while training to see action in the Second World War.

Main camp:

At its peak, there were six movie theatres at this site, retail stores, a hospital, a heated swimming pool and other buildings.

Because it was a summer camp, all the troops slept in white bell tents, so called because they were round and looked like bells, instead of the ones that look like a larger version of today’s pup tents.

The buildings were dismantled and moved in the 1930s as part of a Depression unemployment relief project, some going to Camp Shilo while others went to nearby communities.

All that’s left now are a few small slabs of concrete, thought to be the bases for the large projectors in the theatres. One is inscribed "2nd Field troop 1916."

On the ground, in front of where all the buildings were, is a black substance. "It’s the first tar-over-gravel road in the province," Tascona said.

Cemetery:

On a rise overlooking the field where the trenches are, the Camp Hughes Cemetery is the final resting place for a few soldiers killed during training exercises. Tascona said many more soldiers were killed there, but most were transported to their families and elsewhere.

Four soldiers were killed within days of each other in July 1916.

Because of the military burials, the cemetery is maintained under the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca

Sites and monuments in Manitoba recalling the First World War include:

Brookside Field of Honour:

The cemetery has the largest and oldest military interment site in Canada with the Field of Honour opened in 1915 at the request of The Daughters of the Empire to have a specific area for veterans of the First World War.

Tours have been held at the cemetery the past week with the final one today.

One of the soldiers buried there is Maj. Harry Colebourn, who adopted an orphaned black bear in White River, Ont., named it Winnie after his hometown of Winnipeg, and, after being shipped to France, donated it to the London Zoo. The bear later inspired author A.A. Milne to create Winnie the Pooh.

Memorial Avenue of Elms:

Two hundred elm trees were planted alongside Chancellor Matheson Road from the then Manitoba Agricultural College, now University of Manitoba, administration building to Pembina Highway to honour the students and staff who died in the First World War. The avenue was dedicated by Premier John Bracken on Nov. 11, 1923.

St. John’s Anglican Cathedral in Winnipeg:

Features a stained glass window which shows scenes of several wars Manitobans fought in, starting with Batoche, to the Boer War, to the First and Second World Wars and ending in Korea. It is the regimental church of the Royal Winnipeg Rifles, also known as the Little Black Devils.

Darlingford War Memorial:

Named a provincial heritage site in 1992, it began after Ferris Bolton donated land close to the local school two years after the First World War ended. Bolton wanted the children to see the words Lest We Forget as they went to school. He also planted three spruce trees in honour of his three sons who perished in the war. On site there is a gun case, guns and a cabinet with various helmets and other items from both world wars.

Manitou War Memorial:

The memorial, featuring a statue of a soldier, was erected by the RM of Pembina and Village of Manitou to commemorate soldiers killed in both world wars.

Ukrainian Canadian Internment memorial:

Located on a memorial wall at the Brandon City Hall, it marks the 800 Ukrainian Canadians who were interned from Nov. 27, 1914, until July 29, 1916. Thousands of Ukrainian Canadians across the country were interned after being listed as enemy aliens. In 1915, a man was shot to death at the Brandon facility trying to escape with 16 men. The plaque is at City Hall about half a block from the original site for the internment because the Brandon Agricultural Exhibition Building was torn down to make way for a grocery store.

Memorial Hall in Carman:

It was erected by the town and RM of Dufferin in 1919 to 1920, to serve as municipal offices. Two limestone tablets are carved with the war battles of Vimy and Mons and the Great War Veterans’ Association Room is the Town Council Chambers. It was listed as a provincial heritage site in 1994.

Spall Lake:

Located north of Cauchon Lake, it was named by the provincial government in 2001, to honour 28-year-old Sgt. Robert Spall, of Winnipeg, who was killed on Aug. 13, 1918. He is also commemorated at the Vimy Memorial in France.

Other war memorials and cenotaphs are located in other Manitoba communities including:

• Winnipeg on Memorial Boulevard,
• Brandon’s Cross of Sacrifice in cemetery,
• Alexander,
• Griswold,
• Rivers,
• Rapid City,
• St. Claude,
• Gladstone,
• Treherne,
• Holland and
• Carberry.

Kevin Rollason
Reporter

Kevin Rollason is a general assignment reporter at the Free Press. He graduated from Western University with a Masters of Journalism in 1985 and worked at the Winnipeg Sun until 1988, when he joined the Free Press. He has served as the Free Press’s city hall and law courts reporter and has won several awards, including a National Newspaper Award. Read more about Kevin.

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