The following was first published in the Essex Country Crier in the Summer of 2010. The paper has since gone out of print. Photos of Lorne and Wilfred are from the Kingsville Military Museum
I
encountered this story quite by chance. A family friend had asked me to find
some family history for her. In the course of finding out some World War 1
information, I logged onto the Canadian Expeditionary Force Study Group Forum
to pose a question.
What
caught my eye reading through the posts was someone asking for a photograph
from the Ruthven Cemetery - which just happened to be around the corner from
me.
The stone in question is a memorial to two Ruthven boys who died in World War 1. One lost his life in one of Canada’s most famous battles. The other died in what is one of Canada's most unknown military expeditions of that war.
Lorne
Gore Lane was born July 28, 1897. His younger brother, Wilfred Charles Lane was
born February 10, 1899. The boys were the fourth and the fifth of seven
children of Gore and Mary Lane. Their father was a farmer in Gosfield South
Township, and a stockholder and a director of the Erie Tobacco Co. of Windsor.
The
story I am about to tell begins in 1915. Wilfred, at 16 years of age, had just
become a clerk at the Imperial Bank in Essex.
Lorne, at 18, had enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, signing up in Leamington on October 7, 1915.
He
was assigned to the 70th Overseas Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force.
After training, he shipped out from Halifax on April 24, 1916 on the S.S.
Lapland. He arrived in England on May 5, 1916.
On
June 28, 1916, after further military training in England, Lorne Lane was
transferred to the 26th Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, an
infantry unit in the 5th Canadian Infantry Brigade in the 2nd
Canadian Division. The following day, along with other reinforcements from the
70th Battalion, he found himself in the trenches in France. By September 12,
1916, Lane was attached to his Brigade Headquarters as a scout.
On
the night of November 22/23 1916, while on patrol in "no man's land"
Lorne Lane and two others encountered a German patrol.
According
to New Brunswick’s Fighting 26th A History of 26th New Brunswick Battalion
CEF 1914-1919:
"Scouts
Lane, Parnham, and Larman, forming the 26th Battalion Patrol, had moved out
from Southern Sap shortly after midnight when they detected a hostile patrol of
three men moving in their direction through a patch of old wire. When the enemy
patrol was within range, four bombs were flung at the Germans and the Canadian
soldiers rushed in, killing one and wounding another, but the third escaped
towards his own line. The Canadians remained unscathed. The wounded and dead
Germans were brought back to our front line trench where identification of the
21st Bavarian Reserve Regiment of the 6th Bavarian Reserve Division was
secured."
The official War Diaries confirm the story as well. As a result of this capture, the next night a raid was made on the enemy trenches.
The
Essex Free Press, February 9, 1917 reported that Lane, in a letter to his
parents, wrote that he "helped pull off a little stunt, which pleased
the general commanding No. 2 Division, C.E.F., so much that he gave him a
special 12 day's (sic) pass to England. Upon his return to France, the O.C.
informed him that he had been awarded the Military Medal, for his little
stunt."
This
is confirmed by Lane's inclusion in the January 22, 1917 Supplement to the
London Gazette, and by a line in his military record:
“Awarded Military Medal by H.M. the King”
In
April 1917, Private Lorne Lane found himself in one of the most memorable
battles of the war - the battle for Vimy Ridge.
Situated
in northern France, Vimy Ridge was a heavily-fortified seven-kilometre stretch.
Previously, both French and British troops had tried, and failed, to take the
ridge.
Four
Canadian divisions, fighting together for the first time, stormed the ridge at
5:30 am Easter Monday, April 9, 1917. More than 20,000 Canadian troops overran
the Germans all along the front. On April 12, 1917, the Canadians came out of
the battle victorious.
It
was this battle that is often credited with Canada becoming a nation. But the
price paid was heavy. Almost 3,600 were killed and over 7,000 wounded.
One of those killed on April 9, the first day of the battle, was Private Lorne Lane. As his body was never found, he is one of many who have no known final resting place. His sacrifice is marked with his name on the Vimy Ridge Memorial.
Meanwhile,
Wilfred Lane had continued working with the Imperial Bank in various branches.
In March 1917 it was reported that he was sent to Hotel Dieu hospital in
Windsor, and operated on for appendicitis.
Wilfred soon followed the path that his brother took into the army. Wilfred was a volunteer. He was too young to be conscripted. Wilfred enlisted and was attested at Toronto May 23, 1918 and joined the 70th Overseas Artillery Battery.
After
training in Petawawa as a gunner, The Essex Free Press reported he made one
last trip home around the middle of August. Shortly after his visit had ended,
a small article in August 30th newspaper stated that Mary Lane, his
mother, had an accident in which she fell from a hayloft while collecting eggs,
and remained bedridden at home, paralyzed from the waist down.
By
late in the summer of 1918, it looked like the allies could win the war in that
year. There remained, however, the matter of the Russian Revolution. Of the
many reasons for the intervention in Russia, one was that the Allies were
fearful of the Communists and decided to send a force to Siberia to assist in
defeating them. In addition to several other nations, the US, Britain and Canada
mobilized forces to counteract the perceived threat.
On August
12, 1918, Canada's government passed an Order in Council, and the Canadian
Expeditionary Force Siberia was formed. 4,209 men (and one woman, a nursing
matron) were mobilized for service.
In
the autumn of 1918, the troops for the Expeditionary Force began to arrive at
Willows Camp in Victoria, British Columbia. The initial troops sent to Siberia,
the advance party, departed for Vladivostok on October 11, 1918. With the
signing of the Armistice on November 11, 1918, many soldiers of the Siberian Expeditionary
Force, particularly those who had been conscripted under the Military Service
Act, questioned why they were being sent overseas. The war after all was over. The
Canadian Prime Minister, however, was adamant that the Force be deployed, overruling
his cabinet’s recommendations that no further troops be deployed and that the
Force be returned to Canada.
The
main body of the Expeditionary Force began its movement to Vladivostok on
November 17, 1918 and the first two sailings went relatively smoothly. However,
things changed with the third sailing – a mutiny occurred. On December 21, a
group of troops refused to board ship. The mutiny was put down, and the
soldiers were marched at gunpoint onto the ship. The deployment to Vladivostok continued.
Most
of the troops had arrived in Vladivostok by January 15, 1919. As time
progressed, it became apparent that the Force was interfering in the internal
affairs of Russia and should never have been despatched in the first place. The
Canadian government imposed restrictions on the movement of the troops,
basically confining them to the Vladivostok area. It became increasingly
obvious that there were no meaningful tasks for the troops to perform in
Siberia. With the mission being very unpopular in Canada, the government
decided to withdraw the force. The troops returned to Canada between March and
June 1919. Influenza was rampant, and the majority of those that did not
return, died of illness.
When
Pte. Wilfred Charles Lane joined the Canadian Expeditionary Force in May 1918,
he probably thought that he would serve in France or Belgium. It was not to be
– he would serve on the other side of the world.
Shortly
after his brief return home in August, mentioned above, Wilfred was assigned to
the Mobile Veterinary Section No. 6 of the Canadian Expeditionary Force Siberia,
and then attached to Canadian Headquarters (Siberia).
As a
member of H.Q., he shipped out of Vancouver on November 17, 1918 aboard the
ship, the S.S. Monteagle. He arrived at Vladivostok on December 5.
On February
13, 1919 his military records indicate he entered the base hospital with severe
bronchitis and an ear infection. On February 21, he was discharged as
recovered.
But his
medical conditions continue to flare up. On March 1, he walked on board the
Empress of Japan, and headed back to Canada, along with other soldiers
considered too ill to continue serving. Chronic bronchitis, ear infections,
swollen adenoids, and a deviated septum had invalided him out of the army.
His
condition in the ship's hospital deteriorated. By March 7, his condition was so
serious that, when the Empress of Japan stopped at Hong Kong for refitting,
Wilfred was sent to Bowen Road Hospital, delirious with pneumonia.
Wilfred was laid to rest with full military honours in Hong Kong on March 11, 1919 in Happy Valley Cemetery, Grave 8341, Section C.
Immediately
on notification of his death, The Essex Free Press reported that the Lane
family had cabled Ottawa, requesting his body be brought home. His mother was
still ill, and they feared for her health.
Bradley
Hall, from the Canadian Agency - Commonwealth War Graves Commission, can only
guess at why and how it might have been allowed.
In an
email in response to my queries he states:“my
assumption is simply that some interpretation of the rules occurred after the
Armistice of 11 November 1918 for those who died outside the main European
Theatre prior to the date which was eventually agreed upon by the Commission's
participating governments as the official end date of the war for commemorative
purposes (31 August 1921).
I
am sure it must have been especially difficult on those families who lost more
than one son during the war - certainly there are an unfortunately large number
where this occurred. One never knows - perhaps it was the fact that the
brother's remains had never been found that contributed to an official "bending
the rules" in this case.”
Whatever
the case, the Lanes prevailed. The order was eventually given, and on July 11,
1921, the body was exhumed, and placed on a ship for Vancouver. The Essex Free
Press reported his body was expected at Vancouver by August 2, 1921.
On
August 10, 1921, the body of Pte. Wilfred Charles Lane arrived in Ruthven on
the Pere Marquette Railway. His body was taken to his parents home, and after a
funeral service, he was laid to rest in the Ruthven Cemetery, on the northwest
corner of what is now County Road 34, and County Road 31./
In the Ruthven cemetery there is a large stone marker in memory of both Wilfred and Lorne Lane. Because Wilfred Lane is laid to rest here, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission considers the site a War Grave, and makes regular inspection visits.
