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In 1914, he
helped recruit five hundred men for the newly formed 10th Battalion, and
he later raised the 56th Battalion CEF, going overseas in March 1915. In
mid 1918,
Armstrong was invalided
home. He commanded the 103rd until 1916.
According
to the City of Calgary website: "Lieutenant Colonel Armstrong's post-War
endeavours included a directorship for several years at the Calgary
Building Society; the ultimate result of which was the Armstrong Block
which the Colonel had built himself. He also served as Vice-President with
Alberta Financial Brokers Limited. In the 1940's, he was President at the
Calgary branch of the Alberta Motor Association for seven terms and
continued to be involved in it's organization up until the end of that
decade. As a pioneer motorist, he did much to promote the improvement of
Provincial roads."
Other
endeavors included being Vice President of the Calgary Building Society,
Vice President of Al-Azhar Building Company, Vice President of Alberta
Financial Brokers Limited, Secretary-Treasurer of Woodcraft's Limited, a
member of the Board of Trade, Secretary of the Alberta Provincial Rifle
Association, Secretary of the Liberal Association, the founded of the
Municipal Lighting Company, and Chairman of the fire, water and light
committee.
Armstrong died on the 6th of February 1951.
Officers
William Ashton Cockshutt
William Ashton Cockshutt was
born in 1892, the eldest son of a long standing member of the Canadian
Parliament from Brantford, Ontario. James Cockshutt, his uncle, was
the founder of the famous western Canadian Cockshutt Plow Company.
Ashton was
diagnosed with serious asthma; at age fourteen, he was not expected to
live past the age of twenty and doctors recommended he move to Western
Canada. A move to a farm near Calgary, improved his health, and the
went on to attend Western Canada College, where, according to the
Calgary Highlanders Museum website, "he was introduced to the values of
a military lifestyle."
In 1909, he
entered the Calgary office of the family business while also joining the
103rd Calgary Rifles as a private. He was later commissioned as an
officer, and in 1914 went to Camp Valcartier with the first contingent
of volunteers for the newly forming 10th Battalion.
Ashton saw
much action in Europe, fighting at the first major Canadian battle
(Second Ypres in April 1915), then Festubert and Givenchy, where he was
wounded. He was returned to Brantford, Ontario where he joined the
125th Battalion and was promoted to Captain, proceeding overseas again
with the 125th and being promoted major. |
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The Calgary
Highlanders Museum tells us: "In the fall of 1918, he returned to the Calgary
office of the Cockshutt Plow Co. and rejoined the 10th Battalion. Ashton was
one of three Officers who assisted in the formation of the Calgary
Highlanders. Cockshutt remained a Highlander until 1922, when he was
transferred to Edmonton with the Cockshutt Plow Co.. He held senior positions
within the company and with other large corporations. William Ashton
Cockshutt was one of the few Officers to serve in all three Regiments which
perpetuate the Calgary Highlanders. He lived to be ninety-seven, a remarkable
feat for a boy not expected to live past the age of twenty."
NCOs
Private Donald Fraser, of the
31st (Alberta) Battalion tells us in his journal of at least one NCO of
the 103rd who served overseas:
The way
our old soldiers, physical drill instructors, bayonet fighting
instructors disappeared under the stress of battle to realms of easier
work was a great disappointment to us. To instance a few cases. When the
31st became a battalion, the Regt. Sgt.-Maj. was a man named B__. He was
one of the mainstays of the 103rd Calgary Rifles and naturally
interested in military work. He was very insistent that we smarten up
and be soldiers. His part of soldiering, however, was spent in England.
He took good care to stay on the safe side of the Channel. As Sgt.-Maj.
of our company--a hero of a hundred fights you would fancy him to be if
you listened to his conversation--he wore four ribbons for service in
Africa, Egypt and the Sudan and was a faddist on bayonet fighting. In
England, he used to tap his side gently and remark that this, alluding
to his revolver, was for N.C.O.s who refused to go over the top. I only
saw this fire-eater pay a visit to the trenches once. I gave him the
periscope to look through. He was very uneasy and had a half-hearted
glance through it, slinking back to H'Qrs. a few minutes afterwards.
This seasoned warrior obtained a commission and in addition managed to
get back to Canada. I noticed his picture very nearly the central figure
in a group of War Veterans, taken before their quarters on 9th Ave.,
Calgary.
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Private Fraser in 1916 |
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Sergeant William Dalton Buck
Other men
of the 103rd Calgary Rifles served in Canada as prison guards. William
Dalton Buck was born on the Isle of Wight, Southampton, England on the
12th of December 1859 and married in January 1878, aged eighteen. His
wife, Augusta Emma Jesse, aged 21 at the time of their wedding, bore him
ten children. Both his father and father in law were tailors, but Buck
worked as a plumber, spending his spare time painting seascapes and also
taking to the stage as a comedian and singer. He came to Canada two or
three years before the outbreak of the Great War with his wife and
family, excepting his eldest son who stayed in England.
After the
outbreak of war, Buck became a Sergeant in the 103rd Calgary Rifles, at
the age of 57 he was too old for war service. Instead, he became
assigned to a prison camp set up near Castle Mountain in the Rockies.
This was a tented camp for both enemy prisoners taken in action in
France and Flanders, as well as internees (largely of Ukrainian
heritage) taken from the civil population in Canada. In winter, the
prisoners were moved to warmer barracks near Banff. When the prisoners
were moved to Kapuskasing, Buck moved with them (taking his wife along).
Sergeant
Buck left an interesting photographic record of his experiences in the
camp, though other details of life has not been documented either by
guards or prisoners, and is a chapter of Canadian history largely
unwritten. It is not known how many other soldiers of the 103rd
Regiment (Calgary Rifles) were employed in local internment and prison
camps.
Buck's
photos can be seen in the book In My Charge: the Canadian
Internment Camp Photographs of Sergeant William Buck
© 1997 Lubomyr Y Luciuk and Borys Sydoruk ISBN
1-896354-14-9
A copy of the album is also kept in the collection of the Whyte
Museum of the Canadian Rockies in Banff, Alberta. Information
and image in this section found at
http://www.infoukes.com/history/internment/booklet03/ |
Sergeant William Dalton Buck |
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Sergeant Walter Elliott Murray Goodfellow
One of the
first volunteers for overseas service among the 103rd Calgary Rifles was
Walter Goodfellow. Serving as an NCO in 1914, by the time of the St.
Julien fighting, he was a sergeant in the 10th Battalion.
According
to the battalion historian, Daniel Dancocks, about a dozen men were
never found after the fight at Kitcheners' Wood on 22-23 April 1915.
Sergeant Goodfellow was among them, and his name is inscribed on the
Menin Gate, a tribute to 55,000 dead Commonwealth soldiers who have no
known grave.
Goodfellow
had been born, like many of the initial volunteers for the Canadian
Expeditionary Force, in the United Kingdom, specifically Edinburgh,
Scotland. He listed his date of birth as 12 June 1893, making him just
shy of 22 years of age when he was killed. His prewar occupation was
carpenter, and his next of kin lived at 130 Garden Crescent in Calgary.
His attestation was dated 23 September 1914, and was signed by "Lt Col
R L Boyle, OC 10th Batt". |
Sergeant Walter Goodfellow
Photographed as a Corporal of the 103rd Calgary Rifles in
June 1914 |
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