On 10 February the 8th Bn sailed on the Archimedes from Avonmouth, disembarking at St Nazaire on 13 February. A tedious railway journey lasting more than forty hours took the Canadians the 500 miles to Strazeele, where their induction into trench life on the Western Front began.
In 1925 Carolyn Cornell of the Winnipeg Tribune wrote a series of articles on Canadian Victoria Cross winners and suggested that Pine Street in Winnipeg, where Hall had been living, should be renamed. After some pressure from the Women’s Canadian Club of Winnipeg, the City Council agreed and Pine Street was renamed Valour Road and commemorated with the erection of a bronze plaque on a lamp-post at Portage Avenue. This plaque commemorates three winners of the Victoria Cross in the First World War who were all living in the same block when they joined the CEF: CSM Frederick Hall VC, 8th Bn (WR), 24 April 1915, Ypres; L/Sgt Leo Clarke VC, 2nd Bn, 9 September 1916, Pozières; Capt. Robert Shankland VC, DCM, 43rd Bn (CH of C), 25 October 1917, Passchendaele.
Two of Frederick Hall’s brothers also served in the First World War; Ed was a lance corporal in the 2nd Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) and Harry was a sergeant in the 10th Bn, CEF. The Menin Gate Memorial Register shows their mother, Mrs Mary Hall, living at 43 Union Street, Leytonstone, London, England. Hall’s medals are in the possession of his family.
E.D. BELLEW
Near Keerselaere, Belgium, 24 April
At about the same time as CSM Hall was winning his Victoria Cross north of Boetleer Farm, Lt Bellew of the 7th Bn was fighting for his life less than a mile away at Vancouver crossroads (see map on page 89).
On 24 April 1915 the Canadians of the 8th and 15th Bns (CEF) were holding the trenches on the north-east of the River Stroombeek. To the left of the 15th Bn the line bent south-west, held by a company of 2nd East Kents, crossed the Poelcappelle road, then curved sharply southwards, running west of the villages of Keerselaere and St Julien, where the 13th Bn was positioned on the left of the East Kents; the trenches from Keerselaere to St Julien were occupied by the 7th Bn. At 04.00 hours the release of three red flares from a captive balloon near Westroosebeke signalled another gas attack by the Germans, affecting a front of over 1,000 yards.
The German artillery bombardment, begun an hour before, continued until ten minutes after the release of the gas; when the bombardment ceased German infantry advanced towards the Canadians. The enemy had a numerical superiority of about twenty-four battalions to eight, with the Canadians having the equivalent of only four companies as reserves. By 05.00 hours the 7th Bn, 2nd Canadian Infantry Bde (CIB) saw numbers of the 15th Bn (3rd CIB) streaming past their rear; infantry of the 4th Reserve Ersatz Infantry Regt had broken through the front line where the 3rd CIB was unable to receive artillery support, its supporting batteries being out of range.
The 7th Bn had arrived at its position just over a day earlier and had dug in with their left flank on St Julien and the right near Keerselaere. In command was Maj. Victor Odlum who had taken over after Lt-Col. Hart McHaig had been fatally wounded during the night. Maj. Odlum transferred to 3rd CIB for orders at 05.15 hours but, owing to broken telephone communications, was unable to make contact. At 07.00 hours the 4th Marine Brigade launched a renewed attack on the 13th and 7th Bns, the enemy artillery having continued their shelling throughout. The two platoons on the right of the 7th Bn were supported by two Colt machine-guns under Lt Edward Bellew, the battalion’s machine-gun officer, who positioned his gun team on the high ground at Vancouver crossroads. The constant shelling caused many casualties amongst the gunners, so Lt Bellew manned one gun and Sgt H.N. Peerless the other, both firing into the Germans who were attacking the company on their right. The shell that killed Sgt Peerless also wounded Lt Bellew, but he returned to his gun and continued firing until the machine-gun failed. He then snatched up rifles dropped by his killed and wounded men and continued to fire at the enemy before being stunned by another shell, after which he was taken prisoner.
The Canadian Eye-Witness reported:
Lieut E.P.D. Bellew, machine-gun officer of the 7th Battn, hoisted a loaf, stuck on the point of his bayonet, in defiance of the enemy which drew upon him a perfect fury of fire; he fought his gun until it was smashed to atoms, and then continued to use relays of loaded rifles until he was taken prisoner.
It was now about 08.30 hours and the 7th Bn War Diary records, rather tersely: ‘right flank surrounded and wiped out’. There is no doubt that the determined action by Lt Bellew and Sgt Peerless was a deciding factor in briefly halting the German advance at this point. The 7th Bn was still in a desperate situation and, failing to receive either orders or reinforcements from 3rd CIB, by 13.00 hours Maj. Odlum ordered a withdrawal of his surviving men. At 23.15 hours Maj. Odlum reported that he had only 350 of all ranks available for duty, with casualties estimated at about 500.
After being captured, Lt Bellew, together with other prisoners, was taken to Staden where a trial was convened by the Germans. The charge against Bellew was that he had continued to fire after part of his unit had surrendered. A guilty verdict was pronounced and he was sentenced to be shot by firing squad at Staden Church. It was reported that the officer in charge of the firing squad was not convinced of Bellew’s guilt and halted the execution at the last minute. A second trial was ordered, which took place at Roulers, at which Lt Bellew was acquitted. He was taken to a prison camp in Saxony and remained in various camps (six in total) until 27 December 1917 when he was moved to an internment camp in Switzerland owing to poor health, caused by the effects of gas poisoning, shell-shock and and the very inadequate diet comprising ‘pig blood soup, mangold wurzels and bread of 60% sawdust.’ In Switzerland he was tended by his wife Charlotte who had been allowed to join him, and on 10 December 1918 he was repatriated to England.
Details of his bravery were known during his imprisonment but it was decided not to announce the award of his Victoria Cross until after his release. The citation for his VC appeared in the London Gazette of 13 May 1919 and he was presented with his medal in Vancouver by Gen. Ross, Area-Commandant. Lt Bellew’s VC was the first of three to be awarded to the 7th Bn.
Edward Donald Bellew was born on 28 October 1882 at Malabar Hill, Bombay. (Col. Duguid in his official History of the Canadian Forces in the Great War states that he was actually ‘born on the High Seas’.) He was the eldest son of Maj. Patrick Bellew, Bengal Army, Assay-Master of the Bombay Mint, and Letitia Frances Bellew. He was educated in England at Blundell’s School, Tiverton, Devon, and at Clifton College, Bristol, before passing out of Royal Military College, Sandhurst, in 1900 where he was prominent in boxing and rugby.
Given the family’s military background it was only natural that he should enter the Army. His grandfather, Maj. Walter Henry Bellew, Assistant Quartermaster-General, Indian Army, was one of the last three men with Dr Brydon, the only survivor of the retreat from Kabul in 1842, while his great-grandfather, Maj.-Gen. Sir Patrick Bellew, was Military Governor of Quebec in 1798.
Edward Bellew was commissioned into the Royal Irish Regt as a second lieutenant in May 1901 and after serving in India and Afghanistan retired with the rank of lieutenant in August 1903. On 24 August 1901, in London, England, he married Charlotte Muriel Rees. They had no children.
Emigrating to Canada in 1907, he spent three years ranching and prospecting in Northern British Columbia, before joining the Provincial Forestry Service. At Vancouver in 1912 he was appointed Assistant to the District Engineer of Public Works employed on harbour engineering. He enlisted in the Canadian Army on 10 August 1914 and was commissioned as a lieutenant in the 11th Irish Fusiliers of Canada.
Following the creation of the Canadian Expeditionary Force at Valcartier, machine-gun officer Bellew and the rest of the men of the 7th Bn (1st British Columbia), comprising 49 officers and 1,083 other ranks, sailed on 3 October 1914 on the Virginian, one of the faster ships in the convoy. Disembarking at Plymouth on 16 October, Lt Bellew suffered the miseries of Salisbury Plain with the rest of the Canadian contingent until 10
February 1915 when the 7th Bn embarked on the Cardiganshire for France, arriving at St Nazaire on 15 February. A railway journey lasting almost two days took the battalion to Belgium where it was deployed in training prior to taking over front-line trenches.
After returning to England from Switzerland, Capt. Bellew (he was promoted on 2 January 1916) returned to Canada in April 1919, and continued his employment with the Canadian Civil Service, who had kept him on the payroll throughout the war, as Inspector of Dredging in Fraser River. After 1922 it appears that Edward Bellew went into semi-retirement on a ranch at Monte Creek, British Columbia, where he could also indulge in his hobbies of fly-fishing and gardening.
He attended the British Legion dinner in the House of Lords on 9 November 1929 and was also present in 1956 for the VC Centenary Review at Hyde Park. His last visit to England was in July 1960 for the Second Annual Dinner of the Victoria Cross and George Cross Association at the Café Royal.
Edward Bellew died at the Royal Inland Hospital, Shaughnessy, Kamloops, British Columbia, on 1 February 1961, aged 78. In June 1958 he had praised this hospital after suffering a light stroke and commented in a letter to Canon Lummis that ‘the nurses are superlative’. He is buried at Hillside Cemetery, Kamloops.
After his death Bellew’s VC and other medals passed to his brother-in-law, Mr S.E. Crossman, of Hendon, London, and when he died the medals were auctioned at Sotheby’s of London, on 5 July 1974. They realized a then record price of £6,000 and were purchased for Stephen B. Roman, a Canadian millionaire who, in turn, presented them to the Royal Canadian Military Institute in Toronto on 29 November 1974. The VC was subsequently stolen and has not been recovered.
In October 2004 The British Columbia Regiment (Duke of Connaught’s Own) Association (BCR Association) placed and dedicated a bronze plaque at the Kamloops Cenotaph in Riverside Park commemorating Captain Bellew, VC. A framed collage of Bellew’s photo, citation, 1st BC Regiment cap badge and replica VC was presented to the Mayor of Kamloops for display in the City Hall. On 8 September 2008 the BCR Association dedicated a bronze plaque, commemorating Capt. Bellew’s action and award, affixed to the brick wall of the café opposite the Vancouver Corner Monument in Belgium.
F.A.C. SCRIMGER
Near Ypres, Belgium, 25 April
On 22 April 1915 the Advanced Dressing Station of the 3rd Canadian Field Ambulance was situated with 3rd Canadian Infantry Brigade (CIB) HQ in a large farm to the north of Wieltje (see map on page 89). The original, rather grandiose, name of this moated farm had been Château du Nord but it had been aptly christened Shell Trap Farm by the troops (later, on Corps orders, it was renamed Mouse Trap Farm). Capt. Francis Scrimger, MO of the 14th Bn, Royal Montreal Regt., 3rd CIB, was in charge of this ADS, having just arrived from England to replace Capt. Boyd who had been wounded.
At 17.00 hours the German gas attack, accompanied by a violent artillery bombardment, was launched along much of the front line. Eye-witnesses reported large numbers of Belgian hares running from the oncoming gas-cloud among equally dazed and bewildered French Colonial troops. Some of the gassed soldiers were treated at Scrimger’s ADS while it was under shell-fire.
Reinforcements were being rapidly sent forward although German artillery cut many telephone wires and a very confused situation existed with unfounded rumours circulating between the various units, but at 19.00 hours the Canadian front line was still basically intact.
Due to confusing reports and the lack of real information, and spurred on by rifle bullets hitting the walls of the château, the Staff Captain, 3rd CIB, Capt. Harold MacDonald, organized all available HQ personnel, including cooks and batmen, for the immediate defence of Shell Trap Farm.
By 21.00 hours Brig.-Gen. Turner VC, 3rd CIB, received orders to mount a counterattack on the enemy digging in at Kitchener’s Wood. He was advised that a British battalion would be coming to support the Canadians but, despite the efforts of Capt. MacDonald to find the un-named British battalion, it had already been ordered elsewhere. Turner therefore ordered the counterattack to be launched with the only battalions available, the 10th and 16th, mounting their attack at 23.30 hours.
The 10th Bn was guided to its assembly position some 500 yards north-east of Shell Trap Farm by the ubiquitous Capt. MacDonald. The 1,500 men advanced in waves, their flanks unsecured and with only three artillery batteries in support. There was one more artillery piece in support: a single gun of the 75th Battery RFA, firing from Shell Trap Farm, but with only sixty rounds available. The attack formation had emanated from 3rd CIB HQ with the orders signed by the brigade major, Lt-Col. Garnet Hughes, son of the Canadian Minister of Defence, Sir Sam Hughes. The men had covered about half the 1,000 yards to the wood when the Germans were alerted. Flares illuminated the Canadians, and two-thirds of the officers, all the company commanders and about a half of the other ranks fell.
Meanwhile, by 01.30 hours, the 3rd and 2nd Bns reported to Brig.-Gen. Turner; the 3rd took up positions along the road 300 yards south of Shell Trap Farm while the 2nd Bn was ordered to support the attack on Kitchener’s Wood. News of the 16th Bn’s plight was brought to Bde HQ after 02.00 hours by Maj. Godson-Godson, adjutant of the battalion, who gave his report by handwritten note because of a ‘bullet-ripped gullet’. No doubt he was yet another patient for Scrimger’s hard-pressed staff at the ADS.
Stretcher-bearers attempted to collect the wounded but after they incurred casualties from snipers this work was suspended until after dark. Many of the wounded were treated at Shell Trap Farm, both by Captain Scrimger and also Captain Haywood, MO of the 3rd Toronto Bn, who had set up his aid post in the stables of the farm. The wounded had to wait, many in the open courtyard, for the ambulances to come up after dark to collect them, then making their way back along the crowded roads, illuminated by the burning buildings of Ypres.
Shortly after 16.00 hours large bodies of Germans were seen moving south-eastwards from Kitchener’s Wood and Oblong Farm, where they were heavily punished by guns of the 5th and 6th Batteries CFA, firing over open sights; one of the battery commanders, Maj. Harvey McLeod, was actually sitting on the roof of Shell Trap Farm directing fire. The Germans were stopped when the range was down to 900 yards. This was the last enemy attack of the day.
2/Lt Bruce Bairnsfather, 1st Royal Warwicks, took part in an abortive attack early on 25 April and carried a wounded Canadian officer, probably to Scrimger’s ADS. He described the scene: ‘Shells were crashing into the roof of the farm and exploding round it in great profusion.’ As Scrimger recorded in his personal diary: ‘April 25th. This has been a big day …. I got an hour’s sleep this afternoon, the first for three days and nights …. About this time, lack of sleep and food, anxiety and the excitement of a vigorous cannonade, had worked me up to such an extent that I did not care what happened. I caught myself once out in the open cursing the Germans and all their works. I first now felt a personal hatred towards them. I was afraid, too, to speak for fear of breaking down’.
In the late afternoon the farm was hit several times by heavy enemy artillery fire. Boxes of SAA exploded and some of the buildings caught fire; also burning was the straw in the courtyard, on which wounded men had been laid. Brig.-Gen. Turner and his staff evacuated the buildings, many of them having to wade through the moat, and the majority of the wounded were moved to relative safety. Turner’s brigade captain, Capt. Harold MacDonald, was not so fortunate and in his own words, recounted by the Montreal Star on 16 July 1915:
I was in the front of our Canadian headquarters staff on 25 April, which was the third day of the terrific St Julien fighting, when I was hit on the neck and shoulder. I was dragged into a building where Capt. Scrimger dressed my wounds. A few minutes later German shells found the building and set it on fire. The staff were forced to abandon the building and left me there as an apparently hopeless case. But Capt. Scrimger carried me out and down to a moat, fifty feet in front, where we lay half in the water. Capt Scrimger curled himself round my wounded head and shoulde
r to protect me from the heavy shell fire, at obvious peril of his own life. He stayed with me until the fire slackened, then got the stretcher-bearers and had me carried to the dressing-station. This, however, is only one of many incidents of Capt. Scrimger’s heroism in those awful three days. No man ever better deserved the soldier’s highest honour.
Capt. Francis Scrimger was recommended for the award of the Victoria Cross, the official announcement being published in the Supplement to the London Gazette, No. 29202, dated 22 June 1915. He was decorated by King George V at Windsor on 21 July 1915. As a result of Capt. McDonald’s wounds he lost an arm, but this did not prevent him from reaching the rank of brigadier-general, and after the war he became Chairman of the Canadian Pension Commission in Ottawa.
Born in Montreal on 10 February 1881, Francis Alexander Caron Scrimger was the son of one of the leading Presbyterian ministers in Canada, Principal of the Presbyterian College, the Revd John Scrimger MA, DD, and Mrs Scrimger. The family resided at 83 Redpath Crescent, and while living there Scrimger attended Montreal High School before going on to McGill University Medical School, graduating as an MD in 1905. He then spent some time on post-graduate studies in Europe. Returning to Canada he was commissioned captain in the Canadian Army Medical Corps (CAMC) on 13 April 1912 and appointed medical officer of the Montreal Heavy Brigade, Canadian Artillery. When war was declared, he became MO of the 14th Bn, CEF, on 22 September 1914. Sailing from Valcartier, Quebec, on 3 October 1914, the battalion was divided between two ships, half sailing on the Alaunia and the rest on the Andania. Disembarking at Plymouth, the battalion endured a wet English winter on Salisbury Plain before sailing from Avonmouth on the Australind on 1 February 1915. Scrimger was not with his battalion when it disembarked at St Nazaire on 15 February as he had been detached to No. 1 General Hospital, Netheravon, Wiltshire, on 21 January.
VCs of the First World War 1915 The Western Front Page 10