73 The Royal Canadian Legion MANITOBA & NORTHWESTERN ONTARIO COMMAND www.mbnwo.ca before the Armatice on the 18th of November, and we finished up outside Molens about 4 kms and I was ready to go into battle about 10 o’clock in the morning. I had my equipment all on and ready. I was a Sergeant at the time and I had my platoon ready and the word came through that Armistice had come. So we stayed in this little village, I forget the name of the village, but we stayed in that village and we just slept under our ground sheets. We stayed there for about 2 or 3 days then went into Molen and it was just a shambles. Nothing much left to it, hardly at all. And then we recessed to a place in France. We stayed there all winter. We marched all up around the river up into Atkin and into Bonn, in Germany. From Bonn to a place called Ober, and from Ober to Ebumberedik. And then I come back to Nemeur and down to LeHavre. At LeHavre I stayed for a month and then we come back to England and I stayed in England for a month..” He was granted fourteen days, leave January 26, 1918 and returned to active duty in France in February 1918. In March he was appointed “L/Cpl.vice” and on March 9th he received a Good Conduct badge in the field. On August 24th he was appointed “Cpl-vice” and September 18th was appointed “L/Sgt vice”. William earned his Distinguished Conduct Medal on October 8/9, 1918, north of Cambrai. He received fourteen days leave in the UK on December 13, 1918 and returned to the field on January 18, 1919. On January 3, 1919, he was promoted to “Sgt.vice”. William embarked from Liverpool for Halifax on April 13, 1919 and arrived in Halifax on April 23, 1919. He was discharged on May 26, 1919 in Winnipeg with the rank of Sergeant. He was home in Portage la Prairie for about a month, and then went to work for the Home of Incurable for about two months before he quit to go work for Mr. Sam Rams at Lavenham, Manitoba. While he was there, the Prince of Wales visited Portage la Prairie while on a Canadian tour. In October 1919, William was decorated by the Prince of Wales in front of the old Collegiate School in Portage. WWII William re-enlisted during World War II in August 1940 as a sergeant in the 22nd Company Veterans’ Guard where he guarded prisoners. In his own words “I trained in Winnipeg and in the spring of 1941, I moved to Mays, Ontario. Went from Mays to Angler and guarded Japanese prisoners at Angler for about three months, then came back to Port Arthur for two weeks’ rest, then back to Mays and guarded German prisoners. We took three months turn, each company, then we came back to Port Arthur again. From Port Arthur down to Espanola, Ontario…there for three months. Then I made several trips on the train to Halifax and New York and we fetched two trainloads right clean from New York to Seebe in Alberta. We had 11,000 German prisoners living in tents and guarded them there all summer. In the fall, when it got too cold to live in the tent, we took them from Seebe to Medicine Hat and Lethbridge. We built huts up there, guarded them there all winter. I was made an RSM, Regimental Sergeant Major. Then I was sent back to Wainwright as Camp Sergeant major. There were German prisoners there; I guarded the prisoners there all one winter. Next spring, the war was over. I was detailed as an RSM to take prisoners to Germany. We loaded the prisoners at Wainwright, took them to Halifax, put them on the boat. I was RSM on the boat; took them across to Southampton. A lot of the prisoners that were in the camp, 35 or 40, could not take the solitary confinement and they went (crazy) so we had to take them home to Germany. So I was detailed to take these prisoners right up through France and Hamburg in Germany. I took them out and delivered them where I had to, then come back to England and stayed for a visit.” William passed away in 1988.
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