The World is a Stage
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This month we will remember a WWI soldier who came home. Known in town as Fred Broad, he was one of the men I interviewed in 1993 when researching WWI. At that time he was 95 years old and he died that same year. The information below is a mixture of his memories and the research. His story is also part of the PowerPoint 'Tillsonburg in WWI' which I present.
Frederic Adolphus Broad was born in Newark, Ontario, March 7, 1898. He grew up on a farm west of Otterville. He farmed with his father through the first four years of the war. For only two of those years would he have been eligible (by age) to go, but he was needed on the farm to grow the food to feed the troops.
Fred never said why he enlisted in Toronto, but according to his recollection it was March 1918. (Attestation papers said May 27, 1918.) His father was listed as next of kin. He was 5’ 5”, with a dark complexion, blue eyes and brown hair and he was a Methodist. He had a mole on his chin and scar on his right hip. He enlisted in the 7th Canadian Engineers, and was in France by September.
Going overseas it took over 19 days to get from Montreal to Liverpool because of the fog. The ship went in the middle of a convoy for protection. Another ship crisscrossed in front of them to detonate in stray mines/charges. Just out of Liverpool more ships came out to protect the troops from submarines.
Fred was only at the front for two-and-a-half months before the war was over.
On the way to the front they traveled in railroad boxcars. At one point their train was pulled over allowing another train to pass filled with wounded. The sight causing the reality to set in, Fred knew then this was war.
He never saw what he called 'hand to hand combat' as the Germans were in retreat. The Germans were destroying everything they were leaving behind, especially bridges and railroad tracks. Although Fred was in the engineers, he was equipped the same as infantry with rifle and pack, and really did little in the way of “engineering.”
Fred recalled a time the Germans bombed a bridge. That night men had to put a rubber pontoon flotation device into the water over which they would cross. That same night they heard 'Whiz Bangs.' You could hear the gun discharging the shell, then the whiz of flight and the big bang. At least you always hoped you heard the last bang.
Fred’s unit hid by day and moved by night. Shelling from the Germans slowed their advance, and in a village market square several of Fred’s unit were wounded and killed. They passed a forest of which remained only splintered wood. Fortunately he only had to use his gas mask once.
On Nov. 10, 1918 the Germans left Manz, and on Nov. 11 the Allies walked in. The reception from the people was more than overwhelming for Fred and the boys. They entered the town through a beautiful gate and saw the dead body of a good-looking soldier propped up holding his gun. Two hours later the war was over.
Fred came home in September 1919, exactly one year after shipping out. The men had been busy filling in craters, building bridges, repairing roads and trying to reestablish infrastructure that had been obliterated in the war.
At some point while Fred was still overseas he was on leave in Edinburgh, Scotland getting his picture taken in uniform. He had cone to see where his mother had been born.
He and most of our other boys came home and lived a long life. To honour him and his comrades they had a parade. In July 1925 the cornerstone of the Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital was laid, fundraising done and the hospital built to honour those soldiers. Unfortunately, for whatever reasons, recognizing these soldiers was evidently no longer necessary and ‘Soldiers’ was removed from the name in 1950.
What a privilege it would be for the 100th Anniversary of the Great War if the name could be restored to honour all those from Tillsonburg and District who have served in all the wars.
The 'old' arena at the community centre now holds the ‘Memorial’ honour, yet no one knows what the ‘Memorial’ is for.
In Tillsonburg we still have our Cenotaph, which was set in front of the Town Hall in 1929 to honour the men. Take a moment next time you are at the mall, and read the battles our men fought and died in, and the names of the fallen from both World Wars.