by Denis Smith
When John Diefenbaker returned to university in October 1914 for the final year of his arts degree, he took more economics and a heavy load of courses in law.72 He retained his position as leader of the opposition in the mock parliament, and by the time of graduation in the spring of 1915 he had gained a certain political reputation. “In the mock parliament,” reported the graduation issue of The Sheaf, “as leader of his party, he was particularly zealous.” The report concluded that he planned to remain at the university for a master’s degree and to study law. Elsewhere the paper imagined him forty years on, in 1955, as leader of the opposition in the Canadian House of Commons. As Diefenbaker wryly wrote, “It was in error by one year.”73
During the summer of 1915 Diefenbaker and his friend Stanley Mighton were employed as commission salesmen by the John A. Hertel Company of Chicago, travelling by bicycle to small towns in central Saskatchewan to hawk popular religious literature. Their leading item was a book of Bible lessons called The Chosen Word. The salesmen collected a deposit of $1.00 on each sale, which they kept as an interim wage; eventually they recovered a 40 percent commission on sales ranging from $2.50 to $7.95 per volume, with bonus prizes for the leading salesmen. By early July Diefenbaker and Mighton were described in the company’s Canadian Bulletin No. 10 as “Western Giants” and each had won a suitcase. They were unusually diligent.
These men seem to have planned thoroughly their work, and then worked their plan. In a village of less than 800 people, they have already placed some 75 copies of Chosen Word. Think of it! ! Why the success of these men? First, they have ability; Second, they are not afraid to use their ability – not use it for one or two hours a day, but for nine and ten hours at a stretch day in and day out. That is what counts.
Mr. Diefenbaker on Saturday, June 26th, made the most remarkable record ever made by anyone selling Chosen Word. He took 9 orders out of 9 calls, 5 in the best binding. His sales for the day were nearly $60.00, his profits nearly $24.00. Think of the possibilities in this work. Let one catch THE SPIRIT OF SUCCESS, and he will get orders which otherwise would seem impossible. Mr. Diefenbaker gives as his motto for the last week, “Stop bawling, get right in and do some mauling.” Go to it, Mr. Diefenbaker, that $200.00 Motor Cycle is worth the effort.74
The sales guidelines offered a mixture of uplift plus handy tips for success and the collection of deposits. Diefenbaker quickly mastered the slick pitch designed for use on gullible housewives. He later recalled weeks of bounty followed by weeks of poverty, and in the end he did not win the motorcycle. But he finished the summer standing fifth among all the company’s North American salesmen as a “Top Notcher,” with his friend not far behind. His weekly sales averaged $223.60 over the summer, for a total commission income of more than $700.75 During the barren weeks, Mighton was said to augment their income by hustling winnings at the pool table.76
In July, Elmer Diefenbaker, inspired by his brother’s success, took the road to Humboldt with a friend on the same mission. He wrote to John that he was “going to sell books just as you are doing now.” But a week later he reported little success – and then there was silence. “Dear John – Everything’s bum around here. If I don’t get some decent place to work I’m going home. Mostly foreigners and Catholics around here, and you know how easy it is to sell to these darn fools. The Catholic priest is much in favour of work but if he recommends it to people he is afraid of being fired. He says they are sore at him now. If you are not going to Yorktown we would like that burg. It’s a little piece of Canora. Write me as soon as you can & tell me if we can have it. Elmer”77
In the autumn John returned to the university for his master’s degree in political science and economics, taking courses in economic history, the history of political thought, and British constitutional law. By now the war had become a horrible battle of attrition in the trenches, and the call for Canadian volunteers was growing more intense. For the able-bodied, active service was the alternative, or the sequel, to university; and in March 1916 John Diefenbaker enlisted before the academic year was finished. (He received his degree in absentia in May.) In mid-April he arrived in Winnipeg for officers’ training, dressed in the peacetime scarlet and blue of his militia unit because the supplies of khaki uniforms had temporarily been exhausted. In a postcard home he reported a friend’s gossip that “70 out of a class of 100 failed the last exam so I’ll have to work.” But after a month of elementary lectures and drill, the examinations on May 16 proved easy. On May 27 John Diefenbaker received his commission as a “Lieutenant in the Infantry of the Active Militia” attached to the 29th Light Horse.78
For the moment, however, he returned to Saskatoon as a civilian and in June entered the office of Russell Hartney to begin his law articles. On July 1 the British launched their great offensive on the Somme, which met immediate disaster. In August, after more than a month of merciless slaughter, the British Army called for a Canadian draft of three hundred junior officers for immediate service. On August 21 Diefenbaker wrote to the district commander in Regina requesting overseas posting.79 His brief diary entries record the activities of the next few days:
Tuesday August 22: Rec’d telegram of acceptance from Col. Edgar. Resigned at Russell Hartney’s office.
Wednesday August 23: Accepted by telegram after a great deal of arguing with father etc.
Thursday August 24: All my time spent in preparation. Aird & McMillan accepted unofficially by ’phone message to me.
Friday August 25: Prepared to leave to Regina. Decided to stay till morning. Elmer came home from Biggar.
Saturday August 26: Left Sktoon at 12 o’clock noon CNR. Mother, Father, Aunt Sadie Oscar Elmer present Arrived Regina 6 o’clock Accepted by DOC.80
Three days later Diefenbaker wrote that he was “still stranded. No further word received.” On Wednesday, to John’s surprise, his mother arrived in Regina. The next day they returned together to Saskatoon, where Uncle Ed joined the clan for a few days more of uncertainty – perhaps dispute – over John’s future. The diary notes that Aunt Sadie had become ill and that Mary Diefenbaker was “quite excited.” By September 4 the young officer was at last on the road under orders to proceed to Camp Hughes in Manitoba. On September 7 he had arrived and noted: “First morning ever spent in camp most lonesome ever have been. Rifle Drill etc.”81
Lieutenant Diefenbaker was now a member of the 196th (Western Universities) Battalion. After some cold nights under canvas at Camp Hughes, the contingent left for Halifax on September 17. Thus John Diefenbaker spent his twenty-first birthday on a troop train in northern Ontario, while his mother’s birthday chocolates (which had reached Camp Hughes too late) were gratefully distributed by the chaplain to the thirty-man guard that remained behind.82
Because they reached Halifax after the scheduled departure of the SS Olympic on September 20, the contingent instead boarded the White Star Line’s SS Lapland on September 23 and sailed four days later. The memoirs report a week’s delay because “there was a submarine close at hand,” but Diefenbaker nevertheless wrote a postcard home, in apparent disregard of security, announcing his imminent departure. The passenger list noted the presence of “Lieut. SR J G Diefenbaker” among a company of 138 officers, 113 NCOs, 1776 rank and file, and 16 civilians – a total of 2043 passengers. Among the civilians were Sir George Perley, the Canadian high commissioner and representative of the Borden government in London, and his wife. The young lieutenant played shuffleboard with Lady Perley, who promised him that if he ever wanted assistance in London, her husband would oblige.83
Off Ireland the convoy missed its rendezvous with a destroyer escort and “took precautions against ‘subs,’ ” but without apparent danger. On October 6, after a nine-day passage, the Lapland docked in Liverpool. By late that night the men of the 196th were bunked down uncomfortably at Shorncliffe camp in Kent.84 There they undertook training within sound of shellfire at the front, while more seasoned officers joked grimly about their diminished life expectancie
s.85
The next five months were a curious and puzzling interlude in John Diefenbaker’s life, subsequently obscured or falsified. There are four distinct accounts of his military career, two of them retrospective and two contemporary. The memoirs were published in 1975, and a conversational version was recorded of the same story; during his months of active service in 1916 and 1917 he wrote a personal diary, while his army personnel file includes his official medical papers. In summary, after a few weeks’ training at Shorncliffe and Crowborough camps, he was found medically unfit for overseas service and ordered back to Canada, where he returned in February 1917. But Diefenbaker’s own recollections tell a story significantly different from that of his diary and the army records.
The memoirs offer a vivid explanation of these events.
I enjoyed army life. We worked hard. The drill was heavy, the hours long. Trench work was our forte … At the conclusion of one day’s work we were cleaning up. I was at the bottom of a seven-foot trench when someone, unaware of my presence, threw in a heavy entrenching tool, a combination shovel and pickaxe. It hit me squarely on the spine and down I went. I haemorrhaged most severely. Blood always seems more than in fact it is, but I would think that I must have lost a couple of quarts. My concern at the time was that if I reported to the medical authorities I would miss my chance to go to the front with my friends. My brother officers, and in particular Hugh Aird and Allan McMillan wanted me to report but I demurred, my contention being that if I did, I would be put in hospital and everything would be over. I booked off duty for a few days. The haemorrhage eased on the second day, but on the fourth day it started again. The single line in my diary for that day reads: “Bleeding today from the mouth.” Perhaps, had I immediately reported my injury, nothing would have been different, but I shall always wonder.
After being hospitalized, I was medical boarded again and again. Finally, what I had tried to avoid became a reality: I was invalided home. I did manage to get them to agree and recommend that, if I became fit again, I could return to active service. However, this was not to be, for after being boarded a number of times in Saskatoon I was put in Category E; in other words, totally unfit for further service. When it was suggested I was now eligible for a pension I refused to consider the idea, although on three occasions thereafter, over a period of twenty-five years, I haemorrhaged as a direct result of my injury. The impact on my back caused my heart to be moved out of alignment. In the early 1920s I underwent surgery. In 1925 I was still unable to get life insurance except subject to a lien of 50 per cent, reducible by 5 per cent each year for ten years, at which time the full amount of the policy would be payable.86
Diefenbaker offered variations on this story in interviews and campaign materials over the years from 1940 to 1970. In 1969 he said that “my heart was twisted out of place,” and “I’d been losing weight very fast and I went from 180 pounds down to 130-128.” In 1940 a mimeographed biographical sketch prepared for the use of newspapers in Lake Centre federal constituency said: “He sailed for France in 1916a Lieutenant in the 1st Canadian Mounted Rifles. While on active service he was wounded and spent several months in the hospital.” After interviews with John and Elmer, Patrick Nicholson wrote in 1968 that Diefenbaker had been “sent to France where, soon after landing, he suffered a severe injury in a non-combatant accident which he prefers not to describe and which confined him to hospital for four months.” Peter Newman wrote more briefly, in 1963, that Diefenbaker was invalided home, but “the details of his military career are obscure. He seldom discussed his overseas experiences and consistently declined to wear his World War I service ribbons.”87
Lieutenant Diefenbaker’s military diary offers brief, virtually daily notes on his activities that seem to contradict the story of a serious – or even a minor – injury. The diary records an easier regime than the memoirs. On his second day in Shorncliffe camp, Diefenbaker dined at the Metropole Hotel in Folkestone; the following week there was musketry school in the daytime, but theatre on two evenings. After only ten days at Shorncliffe and at least one more night out, the diary notes four days’ leave at the Hotel Cecil in London. During the day the young Canadian saw the obligatory sights; at night there was music hall at the Hippodrome, Drury Lane, and Empire theatres. On Sunday, October 22, Diefenbaker returned to Shorncliffe, but on October 25 he was given six days’ leave while the Canadian camp was moved to Crowborough in Sussex. Diefenbaker enjoyed another evening of music hall in London and took the overnight train to Glasgow and Edinburgh. There he saw family friends and was an enthusiastic sightseer for four days. On his return south he spent another day in London before arriving at Crowborough camp on the morning of October 31. For three days his unit engaged in “tactics and squad drills,” and on November 4 the officers wrote examinations in tactics, field engineering, and law.88
The first real signs of discomfort appear in the diary for November 5 to 8, but they are general rather than personal. Diefenbaker writes that he was off parade, “as were nearly all the boys due to epidemic which continued for several days with greater or less results.” In his case, apparently less, since a railway ticket stub and pamphlet from the Charing Cross Hotel show that Diefenbaker returned first class from London to Shorncliffe on November 8. Meanwhile the carnage on the Somme continued, and on November 10 he reports: “Several members of the 19th Class included in the draft” for the front.89
The crucial week appears to be the next one:
Monday, November 13: Trench digging and drill from 7.45 to 5.30. Great deal of rain.
Tuesday, November 14: Medical examination today. Passed with weak heart and defective eyesight.
Wednesday, November 15: No drill. Exempted. M.D. says I must go to Hospital to have eyes tested.
Thursday, November 16: No drill. Attend lectures merely. Went to Brighton 2nd Eastern Hospital. Spent night at hospital.90
On Friday, however, Diefenbaker seemed to be well. After promenading in Brighton, he travelled by train to Hastings and Dover, where he spent the weekend sightseeing and attending the movies with a Miss Thornloe. On Sunday evening he returned to camp, and during the week was engaged again in drill, muddy trench digging, and examinations. There is no hint of any accident. On Sunday, November 26, he writes: “At 11 o’clock went before Medical board pronounced unfit for further service and marked ‘Canada.’ ”91
The diary reveals nothing about Diefenbaker’s state of mind; the laconic record simply continues. But he now assumed, or was told, that he had no further military duties. Believing he was free to take leave, on November 29 Diefenbaker checked into the Charing Cross Hotel and filled the next day with sightseeing at the zoo, Madame Tussaud’s, the House of Commons, and theatre in the evening. He may also have spent the day that followed in London. On December 2 he registered at the Bear Hotel in Lewes and undertook more sightseeing. On December 6, back in camp, there was trouble.
Wednesday, December 6: …After being called for some time up before orderly room to explain absence from parade O.C. and Off. excuses [sic] me on recommend, of D.H.D.M.S. Subject to slight duty alone…
Friday, December 8: Orders out that all men unfitted for service must report to every Parade and then be dismissed. Disagreeable term begins. Warned for escort duty. Commenced at 12.30 p.m. over Desjardins in Hut 4. Lounging about…
Tuesday, December 12: No one seems to know what is going to happen to me. But events are always going to happen the day following.92
On December 15 Lieutenant Diefenbaker received notice of his return to Canada, but the order still appeared imprecise. When he was listed to take examinations the next day, he noted that he “did not need it as I had been previously excused.” On Monday, December 18 – three weeks after he had been declared medically unfit – the diary contains its first report of any symptoms: “Spent very sick day. Spat blood on and off and at night became very feverish.” On December 19 Diefenbaker wrote: “Confined to bed today. M.O. pays visit and says my case is being dealt with now a
nd arrangements have been made.” On December 20 there was “nothing doing as usual. The usual vagueness pervades the atmosphere.” Finally, on December 21 he had “escort duty for the last time” and was posted to the 196th Battalion at Seaford, Sussex. That was immediately followed by six days’ leave in London and Liverpool, visits with friends, more sightseeing and theatre.93
After an active day in London on December 29, Diefenbaker remembered that he was due back at Seaford. He took an evening train, registered at the Bay Hotel, and reported to the medical officer, who ordered him to hospital. He entered Ravenscourt Hospital “preparatory to being boarded again,” and remained there for the month of January. Two brief pages record that on January 16 his friend Allan McMillan was posted to France (he was killed on April 9), and that after mid-month the patient was allowed out each afternoon to “spend time at picture shows etc.”94
The forgotten soldier at last received orders on February 7 to report for embarkation in Liverpool five days later. That left him time for an evening in Seaford with “Miss Bennell” and three more days of sightseeing in London. On February 12 John Diefenbaker registered at the Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool (“Best hotel I ever saw”), and next day boarded the SS Grampian bound for Canada. The Grampian, Diefenbaker wrote, was a “bum ship of 10,900 tons.” The passenger list contained “about 100 officers and 200 men and a few civis.” Once on board, the Canadians were informed that they would remain in dock for a week. Diefenbaker told his diary: “Nothing of interest. Dismal and dreary and everyone was fed up with the delay.” At 3:50 am on February 20, 1917, the Grampian sailed for Canada, and the war service diary ended.95