battalions. A few of these were headed by young, gung- ho generals who knew the war would soon end. They did not want to miss their chance at the ‘big show’ and were eager to get to the front to prove their worth. These men still had Tennyson’s poems fresh in their minds and were daily reading distorted newspaper headlines and stories that always left out the realities of war so as not to distress or demoralize readers at the home front. Sadly, one of these generals had the idea of rounding up men from the hospital and depot battalions to form up his own battalion to have a chance at winning medals. He sat men down with shellshock or minor wounds, and began to spin his tale: ‘You don’t want to go home to your parents and have them think you’re a nut job, do you? What will your girl back home think of you returning without honours? Don’t you see I’m offering you the opportunity to clear your name, your one last chance to become a hero? The Germans are broke and in retreat; we’re just going in to mop up; there’s no real danger’. William was deemed physically fit for active duty and with his old battalion, the 75th and others, returned to the front, to the Battle of Arras. The war was actually far from over, and the Germans were not in retreat but, on the contrary, preparing, just like we were, one last big push to end the war. For seventy-eight days, William survived life at the front while suffering through an absolute hell that I pray none of us will ever know. Arras and ‘the last hundred days’ were just as brutal and horrible as the war years before. If anything, the Germans were more determined to fight and win. On June 4, 1918, William was in a trench on front-line duty. At some point, he simply stood up and went ‘over the top,’ armed only with his bolt-action, single-shot Lee-Enfield MKIII rifle, to charge a German machine-gun position. He took multiple bullet wounds to his chest and, upon being retrieved from the field, was taken to clearing aid station No. 3, where he succumbed to his wounds. He now rests in the Bagneux British Cemetery in France. There is no Medal of Valour for William and no memorial Crucifix to commemorate him. Please take a few minutes at the 11th hour of the 11th day of this 11th month to remember young William Patrick
Burns and the thousands of other ‘un-sung’ heroes and give these brave men the recognition and honour they so deeply deserve. I’ll leave you with a request: Pray for everlasting peace so we never again send our young men and women to the horror that is war.
Grave Marker for Private William Patrick Burns in the Bagneux British Cemetery, located in the town of Picardy in northern France. Photo by Marg Liessens, courtesy of the Canadian Virtual War Memorial.
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Page 8 Boomers and Beyond – Elgin • November 2024
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