195 The Royal Canadian Legion MANITOBA & NORTHWESTERN ONTARIO COMMAND www.mbnwo.ca McGINNIS, Howard Livingstone WWI Howard signed up with the Army on February 12, 1917, at the age of 24 years. He joined the 44th Battalion in Winnipeg, along with Ed Taylor. From February to September 1917, he took a gun course and other military training in Winnipeg and trained at different places with Meril Culver, Ed Taylor, and Algie Barnard. In September 1917, he left Camp St. Charles for England on the Canadian Pacific ship, the S.S. Metagama. The ship was 18 days at sea. After about five months of intensive training and maneuvers in the United Kingdom, he was drafted to Europe, arriving in France on March 1918. He was attached to the 251st Battalion before leaving England. In his camp, he was known as Cy. Howard was in action in the front line in France when the Germans first used poison gas. This attack came as a total surprise and contravened the Geneva Convention. Howard and other troops were caught unaware, not wearing gas masks, and suffered severely. One night, at the front in France, he was delegated to probe the enemy defences. In the pitch dark, he proceeded all alone from his trench toward the German trenches. In one hand he carried his .030 rifle (number X6489), and in the other hand, he carefully held a long wire which, at the end in his trench, had a small bell. As he carefully groped his way through the darkness, he got close enough to the German trenches, undetected, and was able to return with some information. In one episode, he brought back a German prisoner. His unit was then able to interrogate the prisoner and obtain useful information about their opponents. The idea of the wire and bell was an emergency precaution. If he needed help, a little jerk on the wire would ring the bell and his buddies would come to his aid. In October 1918, on his way to the vicious battle at Vimy Ridge, Howard was wounded at Cambrae. A piece of hot shrapnel hit him on the shoulder, sank into his chest cavity, and lodged in his lung, which had already been damaged by poison mustard gas. The shrapnel was from friendly fire. Allied artillery was lobbing shells a short distance ahead of the advancing reinforcement troops when one of the shells exploded a bit short of its objective; a piece of shrapnel bounced off the hard road and hit him. Bleeding and in acute pain, he walked to the railroad track and climbed aboard the flat train car which took him to an American hospital. He was transferred to England and hospitalized at Castle-on-Tyne Hospital. From there he could see the Murton Factory that was owned and operated by his mother’s family. On the way to Vimy, before he was wounded, he had eaten some mouldy Christmas cake that made him very sick. In the dark, he crawled into a hole, and in the morning, discovered he was lying on the edge of a big cistern full of water. The troops had gone ahead to Vimy and were all killed. Once recuperated, Howard was put aboard the HMS Olympic in Southampton, in January 1919, and then docked in Quebec. He was discharged in Winnipeg. Howard worked for the C.P.R. in Minnedosa from 1923 to 1944. He then farmed until retirement in 1959. On December 29, 1937, he married Helen Wilhelmina Robertson, a nurse from Franklin, Manitoba. They raised two daughters, Lynn and Dawna. During retirement years, Howard was an active member of the Hugh Dyer Branch of The Royal Canadian Legion #138 of Minnedosa. He was a member of the United Church, an A.O.T.S. member, an usher and member of the Session. He passed away on May 23, 1971. This is the contents of a letter to Howard at the end of the war from King George V, Buckingham Palace, London, England: The Queen and I with you “God’s speed and a safe return to your homes and dear ones. A grateful Mother Country is proud of your splendid services characterized by unsurpassed devotion and courage”. “George R. I.” Howard received the King George 1914-1919 Medal, the Great War for Civilization Medal 1914-1919, War Service Medal, and Medal “For Service at the Front”.
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