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History buff shares recent findings from Ladner cenotaph names research

A local man continues to honour veterans by looking to the past.
cenotaph
A local history buff has tracked down details on about three-quarters of the names on the Ladner cenotaph.

A local man continues to honour veterans by looking to the past.

A few years ago, Peter Broznitsky, a self-described history buff and amateur military researcher, started looking into the stories behind some of the names that appear on Ladner’s cenotaph.

Broznitsky has been working to bring their stories to life.

He said so far he’s managed to track down information on about three-quarters of the names, patching together their stories while searching through census data, military records, old newspapers and other bits and pieces found at the Delta Museum and Archives.

In honour of Remembrance Day tomorrow, Broznitsky has shared one of his latest findings.

According to his research, of the 27 names from the First World War, three died on the same day, (1917-10-31) Halloween, during the Battle of Passchendaele.

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One hundred and one years ago, a 29-year-old soldier from Ladner sat down to write a letter to his brother back in Scotland.

John Cameron tried to describe some of his recent life in the trenches.

“You’re ordered (in a whisper as you are very near the enemy lines) to dig in, off comes your equipment and you place your rifle where can grab it at a moment’s notice should Fritz get inquisitive. Then you dig as you never dug before for your life depends on getting cover before they detect you. The perspiration breaks out but you dig, your head feels like bursting but you dig, your breath is coming in short gasps but you keep on digging, you dig while on your knees, and even laying on your stomach, you dig like a maniac until you’ve got cover, then you rest and get your wind back.”

A year later, John had vanished in Belgium, his final resting place now unknown.

He disappeared on Wednesday, Oct. 31, 1917.

Two other men from Ladner died that same day. Captain Cecil Weare, and Private William McLennan died in different circumstances with different infantry units of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, but each had walked the streets of the village of Ladner in the early 20th century.

We know the least about McLennan.

Born in Rosshire Scotland, he was 27 when he joined the 72nd Battalion Seaforth Highlanders in Vancouver in April 1916.

He listed his occupation as a rancher.

It is nowadays hard to imagine ranches in Ladner, but there were several in the South Delta.

McLennan trained with the 72nd in Vancouver and then England, and landed in France in August 1916. He thus likely saw action with the Canadians on the Somme, at Vimy Ridge, and at Hill 70.

He met his fate at the Battle of Passchendaele.

 

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With “A” Company of the 72nd, he was in a third wave that went forward against German positions in the little village on Oct. 30 1917.

Sometime the next day, during counter attacks, he was declared missing in action. Later his body was found, and he now lies buried in White House Cemetery, Belgium.

His estate and medals were sent to his mother and father, Andrew and Kate McLennan of Farr Home Farm, Daviot Inverness.

Cameron of Ayshire, Scotland came to Ladner in 1906 and found work on a ranch owned by Thomas Ladner. He became friends with other young men, in particular Ray Hutcherson.

By September 1915 he had enlisted across the Georgia Strait in Victoria with the 67th Pioneer Battalion. Like McLennan, Cameron reached France in August 1916.

As a member of a Pioneer Battalion he would have been in a light engineering support role for the major Canadian battles of that period.

In a letter dated August 1917 to Mrs. Leila Hutcherson and printed in The Weekly Gazette, he told her that “Dry feet and something to read take a whole lot of the bitterness out of this life.”

By October 1917, Cameron was with the 124th Pioneers, supporting the upcoming Canadian attack on Passchendaele.

On the night of Oct. 31/Nov. 1, he was with a working party filling in shell holes on a road that was vital to the Canadian effort. The Germans were raining high explosive and gas shells down. Trucks loaded with ammunition caught fire and were blazing and exploding.  In the dark something happened. Cameron vanished. Thought to be wounded and missing, he was declared dead days later.

His name is now engraved on our cenotaph, a cenotaph in Doune Scotland, the Menin Gate Memorial in Ypres, and on the family headstone in Doune Cemetery.

The 1910 Ladner Directory shows Weare employed as a clerk with the Lanning Fawcett & Wilson General Store.

Weare, born in Hertfordshire England, was a nephew of Mrs. Gertrude Lanning.

When war broke out in August 1914, he made his way across Canada, perhaps intending to join the English forces in England. He enlisted at the age of 21 as a private with the 25th Nova Scotia Overseas Battalion in Halifax in December 1914.

Landing in France in September 1915, Weare rose quickly, becoming a Lieutenant during the Battle of Courcelette on the Somme in September 1916, and won a Military Cross for gallantry and became a Captain during the Battle of Vimy Ridge. It was at Vimy that he was seriously shell shocked and deafened in one ear. He was made a conducting officer, meaning he led parties of reinforcements from base areas into the combat areas.

In the early morning of Oct. 31 1917, while sleeping in a hut close to the front trenches, a bomb from a German aeroplane struck the building, severely wounding him and others.  Quickly evacuated to a clearing station, his wounds proved too great and he died.

He lies buried in Lijssenthoek Cemetery, Belgium, and is remembered on the Ladner Cenotaph and on the memorial in his home town of Hitchin, England.

So, three different young men, three different tales. Perhaps they knew each other or had a nodding acquaintance on the few sidewalks in their small village of Ladner. They now lie as comrades in Belgium, having done their duty for their adoptive country. We remember them.