William Ferguson Fleming
Private
3rd Battalion
Canada's Machine Gun Battalion
The 1915 call for men ignited a recruitment frenzy across Canada with every community seeking to contribute to or raise a local Battalion. The citizens of the youthful nation took an immense pride in these Battalions, though so many were created that they began competing for the same volunteers. Such was the case in the fertile Niagara Peninsula where several Battalions attempted to ensnare the attention of the fittest candidates for service. Among those able and willing to volunteer was a hardy Scottish immigrant from Glasgow, William Fleming. The 37-year-old resident of St. Catharines had found his calling farming, though he was quick to join up with the 44th Lincoln and Welland Regiment of the active militia. His height of 5’8”, labor-intensive profession, and brief militia service put him in the crosshairs of these local Battalions looking for men to send overseas. Yet it was one unique Battalion which caught his and many within the same Regiments attention, the 86th. This particular Battalion dubbed itself a “machine gun Battalion”, making it the first to do so in the entire Commonwealth (1). The allure of using these modern weapons excited many recruits who flocked to its ranks (1). William Fleming made his choice and volunteered with the new Battalion on August 13th, 1915. Many of his fellow militiamen followed suite and before long they formed an entire Company within the 86th, D Company.
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Following his enlistment in the active service, the Scotsmen was marched away from Welland with the other excited men in D Company to Camp Niagara where they expected to begin training with the famed machine gun. Yet there was some level of disappoint among the eager recruits when they discovered that their “Machine Gun Battalion” only had rifles. Despite this, they began their training in close order drill and were soon relocated to the armories in Hamilton (1). It was here William finally got a look at one of these modern weapons as a few were picked up by the 86th a couple months before leaving Canada (1). Yet his training with the firearm was minimal as he was soon whisked back across the Atlantic to Camp Shorncliffe, England in May of 1916 (2). It was here his real training began with the firearms systems as he drilled and learned to work as part of a team in a machine gun section.
Trench Life
The rigorous courses in the operation of machine guns in England turned the blue-eyed Scottish-Canadian into an efficient team member within his section, preparing him for what awaited overseas. He like the others, no doubt hoped they would deploy as a Battalion, but the 86th was turned into a depot unit and the men assigned as replacements to other outfits. William received his posting to the 3rd Battalion with many other men from the original 86th, sailing across the channel for France in October of 1916. For a few days he remained in a depot location while some of his comrades departed for the line. Certainly this was a bit frustrating given his eagerness to go, but it may have been fortune that spared him. For when William and 199 other fresh men marched into the field to join the 3rd Battalion, they did so following the infamous failed assault on Regina trench. Their fresh faces almost made up a majority of the Battalion due to the sheer casualties suffered a few days prior. It was no surprise to anyone that the 3rd was kept out of the line for a period as they began a series of training courses to bring everyone up to speed.
By the time the understrength Battalion was again deemed ready for duty, the middle-aged private had well over a years worth of solid training. Yet life in the trenches still came as a shock to all in the 3rd as they relieved the 1st Royal Fusiliers in the line (2). The walls of mud and plywood made the “inhospitable” billets they had experienced in the last month seem like luxury real estate (2). The realities of this war soon set in for William as he became accustomed to sound of artillery and the unending casualties that occurred even when they simply sat in part of the line (2). For the better part of several months, he participated in the typical trench rotations. Manning his Lewis gun in the machine gun section, watching the line. Attacks from trench mortars, artillery, and the occasional German bomb became common place. Some days they wounded or killed a man, others they didn’t. Besides watching the line, they would also take part in raids, the 3rd Battalion conducting successful operations for prisoners several times, and dealing with enemy attempts to do so. If all this madness wasn’t enough for William and his compatriots, there were German tunneling units attempting to work their way beneath them. It all seemed a giant endless gamble as he waited in the line for their eventual rotation out, only to be sent back in again.
The Front
The man-made hazards were many, but for William, mother-nature proved a worse enemy. Initially it was rain that soaked the trenches. But as the months turned to January, snow and ice set in, forcing the Battalion on an especially fowl trip on the 18th when they had to trek on slick roads up hills (2). It was no surprise there were large delays in settling them all into the line (2). The trenches he occupied were in horrid condition and the weather rarely let up, soaking his boots and freezing. Initially he felt only pain in his left foot but it soon spread to his right as his feet swelled and became discolored. It became hard for him to walk and he was evacuated out of the line with “trench foot.” In a small bit of fortune, he had spoken up soon enough, which ensured his feet healed and prevented amputation. He was far from the only soldier to suffer under this blight, it was an epidemic faced by all who lived in the trenches.
After some time in English hospitals, he returned to the mud and bloodbath of the front in June of 1917. From there on he fought through a swath of offensives including muddy Passchendaele, bloody Amiens, and throughout Canada’s 100 days. Only once did he leave the front briefly in 1918 for 14 days of furlough in England. During this period hundreds of men in the Battalion were killed or wounded, but he remained unscathed. His veterancy within the machine gun section was hard to match, the Lewis gun becoming almost a close friend given the time he spent with it. At the very least he was one of the few who remained to see the war shift from the endless slog through trenches to a rapid advance by its end. When the guns finally fell silent in November of 1918, there were only a handful of familiar men of the 86th who he had trained with back in Camp Niagara. By the time he returned to Canada in 1919 at the age of 41, he had seen more than enough of conflict. |
Sources:
(1) “86th Machine Gun Battalion: A Brief History." https://web.archive.org/web/20091026160750/http://geocities.com/hambattcef/86.html
(2) “3rd Bn War Diaries 1916,1917.” The Queen's Own Rifles of Canada Regimental Museum and Archive, 22 Mar. 2017, https://qormuseum.org/history/timeline-1900-1924/the-first-world-war/perpetuated-battalions/3rd-toronto-battalion-canadian-expeditionary-force/3rd-battalion-war-diaries-1916-january-to-june/
(1) “86th Machine Gun Battalion: A Brief History." https://web.archive.org/web/20091026160750/http://geocities.com/hambattcef/86.html
(2) “3rd Bn War Diaries 1916,1917.” The Queen's Own Rifles of Canada Regimental Museum and Archive, 22 Mar. 2017, https://qormuseum.org/history/timeline-1900-1924/the-first-world-war/perpetuated-battalions/3rd-toronto-battalion-canadian-expeditionary-force/3rd-battalion-war-diaries-1916-january-to-june/