Why We Are Honouring the Soldiers of World War One This Year and Why We Had the Memorial

WHY WE ARE HONOURING THE SOLDIERS OF WORLD WAR ONE

THIS YEAR AND WHY WE HAD THE MEMORIAL RESTORED

Vandra L. Masemann

Chair, Malvern CI War Restoration Committee

The main purpose of Remembrance Day is to remember. But it is difficult to remember if you have no idea of what there is to remember. I hope to fill that gap in your memory in this brief speech today. We restored the Malvern statue this year in memory of the 25 young Malvernites who served and died in what was then called The Great War. Who were they and what did they experience? What do you have in common with them?

When Malvern was built in the early 1900s, it was built in several stages. The oldest part of the school still standing is the North Door. You can see by the darker red colour of the bricks. In the spring of 1914 Malvern High School became

Malvern Collegiate Institute. After war broke out in 1914, more than 122 Malvern boys and a teacher, Mr. Wood, enlisted. Of those, 25 were killed – fully one fifth.

As students those boys had all walked through the North Door. They had played sports in the new gym. They had done science classes in the new labs that had been built. They had sat next to friends in classrooms. Their voices had echoed in these very corridors. They lived on streets you walk on every day – Swanwick, Lyall,

Malvern, Beech, Willow. They were just as much a part of the school life as you are today. Imagine if one fifth of all the boys at Malvern were killed just after you all graduated or left school.

And what was their life like after they volunteered to serve in the war? They served in regiments that have names unfamiliar to us today – the Canadian Expeditionary

Force, the Canadian Field Artillery, the Canadian Machine Gun Corps. Of the 25, ten were gunners who fought in the artillery battles. Many of them died at the famous battles inscribed in the history books – the Somme, Arras, Vimy Ridge and

Passchendaele. Colonel James Hubel who spoke at our War Memorial

Rededication last Friday recounted some of the details of their participation in the war.

“ Between them was No Man’s Land. In front of them were rows of barbed wire entanglements. Behind them were similar reserve trenches in case they were ousted from the front line. In order to reach the front, communication trenches zigzagged through the reserve trenches to the front line fighting trench. Behind the fighting trenches the field artillery batteries were located. The batteries were equipped with

6 x 18 pounder guns. They were towed by 3 teams of horses with a driver atop each left hand horse. The guns fired High Explosive and shrapnel rounds up to 5.7 km. Smoke was used to blind the enemy or screen off portions of the battlefield.

Star shell was used to illuminate the battlefield at night or signal phases of an assault, success, and so on.”

When I went to Malvern in the 1960s, I lived on Beech Avenue next door to a veteran of World War One who never tired of telling me about life in the trenches.

Imagine digging a deep hole in a field and then living in it in all kinds of weather.

He told me of the rain, the puddles and the endless mud, of never having dry clothes, of feet with all kinds of sores, of the rats scurrying about and of the smell.

Anyone who has been on a camping trip that went wrong knows how much those soldiers wanted a hot bath, a comfortable bed, and a decent meal.

After the war was over, the Malvern community collected $3400 from graduates, students and teachers, to commemorate, not the war itself, but their lost friends and fellow students. The monument was carved by Emanuel Hahn, a famous Canadian sculptor who also designed our dime and our quarter. It was dedicated in 1922 and was to stand for peace, and for the courage of youth to face the future. It was a fitting tribute to youth itself who are starting out on life after high school. Those boys did not get a chance to live their lives to the full. But they are still part of

Malvern life and its memories. Just as much as you are. That is why we are here today.