Veterans Affairs Canada
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Gordon Alec Boyd
Veteran of the First World War
Fredericton, New Brunswick
Mr. Boyd is a native of New Brunswick, born in Fredericton on March 18, 1899. Before the First World War, Gordon worked as an office boy at A.F. Randolph and Sons in Saint John. On March 17, 1917 -- the day before his 18th birthday -- he enlisted at Partridge Island, New Brunswick, with the 9th Siege Battery, claiming to be 20 years of age. He sailed overseas from Halifax, just one week after the great explosion had occurred. He recalls a strip of destruction virtually "the width of the whole city ... everything was taken, trees and stumps." Gordon arrived in Glasgow, Scotland, on December 21, 1917, aboard the SS Grampian. From there he went by train to England, where he received training on the 6-inch Howitzer battery guns. It was at this time that his real age was discovered. He was held back from going to France until June 18,1918. By then he was 19. His group, the 12th Siege Battery, formed up at Vimy. His description: "It was a pretty beaten up country."
Gordon's responsibilities as part of a team manning the field guns kept him back from the thick of the action: anywhere from about half a mile to five miles from the front line (from three-quarters of a kilometre to eight kilometres). He remembers that the tanks first used during the Great War "... didn't do much damage because they were so big and clumsy."
An unpleasant memory that Mr. Boyd has never forgotten is the moment that a companion waiting in the dinner line-up with him was killed instantly when a piece of shrapnel from an exploding shell pierced his heart. Gordon was fortunate to have had "just enough time to get down (on the floor)."
Mr. Boyd was wounded on October 9, 1918, the last day of the Battle of Cambrai, when the Allies witnessed some of the bloodiest fighting of the latter part of the war. As he recounts it, "We were on a diagonal line, trying to get a gun back on the platform. Two shells came in, in a salvo, and killed eight or ten of the men." Having been injured during the blast, Gordon spent several hours on his own before he was rescued and taken to a field hospital. He was sent back to Leicester, England, where he convalesced for several months. On March 19, 1919, he was discharged from the army and sent to Wales to await his return home. He remembers that three or four individuals were accidentally killed during riots that broke out when Commonwealth soldiers learned their homeward voyages had been cancelled -- seemingly to accommodate American troops, who were perceived to be receiving preferential treatment.
Upon returning to Canada, Mr. Boyd returned to work for his former employer for another 15 to 16 years until, suffering from the economic ravages of the Great Depression, the firm folded. As it was for many people, that was a difficult period in Gordon's life. It was some time before he found a steady job.
With the onset of the Second World War, Mr. Boyd served in the Veterans' Guard for about one year, after which he left, having recurring trouble with the leg he had injured at Cambrai.
