Tragedy Strikes Port Perry
Corporal Gordon Wesley Hood
868008 116th Battalion
Born 1892 in Scugog, ON
Killed in action on Aug 27, 1918
Private Arthur Blond Doubt
868170 116th Battalion
Born in 1886 in Port Perry ON
Killed in action on Aug 27, 1918
Private Francis Clark
746280 116th Battalion
Born in 1896 in Mono Road, ON – lived in Port Perry
Killed in action on Aug 27, 1918
Time had passed by for what seemed to be so long that it was getting hard to realise that they were actually still over there… fighting…suffering… enduring…in one of the deadliest conflicts ever known to man. The letters would arrive from the boys and their loved ones would devour them, pursing every word in the attempt to learn about how they are faring…long detailed accounts of a spring and summer spent playing far behind the lines…baseball games, football matches, joyous nights laughing to the Dumbells or the chance fortnight away, maybe spent in the highlands of Scotland or the brasseries of Paris while on a well-deserved leave. Many of these letters were published in the local weekly, the Port Perry Star allowing readers to follow their boys as they served them overseas. Yet still…one month would pass by and be followed by another and thankfully the dark noticed of ‘supreme sacrifices’ would not come. Until the autumn of 1918, the city of Port Perry has somehow avoided absorbing great losses on the Western Front.
Almost two years had passed since the boys climbed aboard the troop train and waved their long goodbyes…the cluttered mass of hands or heads popping from the windows in a final attempt to see the image of their mom or dad, wife or sweetheart fade back into the distance as they pulled further and further away. Over the proceeding two years many of these young men did return home…some with fewer arms, others legs, some struggled to breathe as well as they once did and some returned simply as broken men…their bodies intact but their minds bearing the scars of the horrors seen, felt and heard ‘over there’. Yet still the town of Port Perry was somehow able to avoid receiving similar levels of fatalities that beset their surrounding communities, including those from other towns in the district, province and country. Starting with the big push initiated by the Canadians at Amiens on the 8th of August 1918, this fortunate respite from the repercussions of the Great War would come to a sorrowful end.
In the years 1915-1916, the town of Port Perry counted its’ population to be about 1,500 souls. In the recruitment drive of 1916, 68 men from the town and the surrounding region would attest to join the CEF specifically queuing up and joining the regionally raised 116thOntario County Battalion. These men were all poked, prodded, measured and weighed, given a number, a uniform and finished off with a pair of boots and called a Canadian soldier. These men were primarily farmers and farmer’s son or their hired help working on the countless family farms that blanketed the area. However, the call for volunteers saw men from all backgrounds respond. Two of these men were a 24 yr old Assistant Bank Manager, Gord Wesley Wood and the 30 yr old, son of a tailor, Arthur Blond Doubt.
Gordon Wesley Hood began his career as a bank clerk in the local branch of the Standard Bank. (Standard Bank was eventually merged into the Canadian Bank of Commerce which became CIBC) He earned his stripes and was steadily promoted within the bank and by the fall of 1915 found himself promoted to the Assistant Manager of a major bank branch located in Toronto on Bathurst Street. Socially, Gordon was active in Freemasonry and counted himself as a member of the Port Perry based Fidelity Lodge. Once can imagine that his prospects were strong with a solid career in business well in hand, however, Hood was also a perfect candidate to join the fray and on Feb 15th 1916 enlisted in his home town of Port Perry and became a soldier in the CEF.
Arthur Doubt also spent his childhood years in town and went to the same schools as Hood. His career would take him down a different path as his father Henry Doubt operated a clothiers and merchant shoppe in town. As expected, he would be trained in the family business with the hope of him one day becoming a tailor himself. However, aside of learning the trade of measuring, cutting and sewing Arthur was also a part-time soldier. Prior to the war he served alongside Lt. Col. Samuel Simpson Sharpe in the 34th Regiment. Thus, when officers from the 182ndBattalion arrived in town and began to set up their recruitment office, Arthur Doubt would provide none and quickly agree to serve under his former Major’s leadership. (As far more men responded to the call as could fit within the 116th Battalion, the 182ndBattalion would become the sister unit with many of the men joining the parent battalion as replacement soldiers once deployed in France)
Our awareness of the two men was highlighted in an article published in the September 19th edition of the Port Perry Star. The article admitted that the town had so far been spared from the same levels of devastating news that struck so many others. However, with that notification, it went on to advise the readers that while only two other local boys paid the supreme sacrifice in the war up to that date…news was just received notice that Corporal Gordon Wesley Hood and Private (formerly Lieutenant who reverted on his own request) Arthur Blond Doubt were killed in action. Both Gord and Arthur had just fought in one of the most fierce, impactful and deadliest battles fought by the Canadians in France…the Battle of Drocourt-Queant.
On the 27th of August 1918 the 116thand the 9th Canadian Infantry Brigade of the 3rd Canadian Division were tasked with participating alongside their brother brigades in an assault on the German positions at Drocourt-Queant. Drocourt Queant referred to the section of front that spanned from the town of Drocourt in the north, just east of Arras down to the town of Queant. The front was a critical portion of the German Hindenburg Line and represented the lynch pin protecting the German front system on the west to the sea and east down through Cambrai to the French sectors further east. The job of the Canadians and the 116th Battalion was to race up the centre between two other battalions, the 52nd and the 58th and take the high ground…namely a city town called Boiry Notre Dame.
The specifics details behind their individual fates were not recorded, however by reviewing how the attack unfolded can assist in helping understand how they eventually were killed on that fateful day. The now Corporal Hood (he was promoted to the NCO position only four days prior) was tasked with helping lead a small contingent of men from their jumping off positions at Monchy and along a sunken road that led to the town of Boiry Notre Dame in the distance. The young Corporal did not make it very far after scaling the ladders and racing overland towards his objective. He was probably killed by the many entrenched machine gun positions on the right that has yet to be subdued.
The details behind Private Doubt’s demise are also quite murky. The record only states that he was killed between the Bois du Vert and Bois du Sart. These were the names of two small woods which edged the battlefields assigned to the 116th. Like Hood, Arthur most likely was killed by the machine gun fire that snuffed out the lives of so many men from the battalion that day.
The third Port Perry lad to fall was Private Frank (Francis) Clark, a 22 yr old from town. Francis lived on a farm near town and had been the first of the three lost that day to enlist. His parents lived in Uxbridge and on Nov 8th, 1915 be travelled to town and signed up to fight with the battalion. Frank was a 116thoriginal. He served his entire military service with the battalion and started his service by being one of the first lads to take the long dusty march through the county back in the spring of 1916. Clark would have been with the unit through the hell of 1917…Vimy, Lens, Hill 70 and Passchendaele. It is a true tragedy that he was cut down on the approach to Boiry Notre Dame as he had been able to successfully evade serious injury despite being in the heat and heart of combat for so long.
The deaths of these three local men were not lost in vain for on Aug 29th the town of Boiry Notre Dame was secured by the 116thBattalion and by the 3rd of September, the CEF had broken the formidable Drocourt-Queant Line…a loss that the German Army would never recover from.
The Roll of Honour from the 116th Battalion lists the names of 12 men from the town of Port Perry who killed while fighting alongside the unit overseas. The Township of Scugog would later list the names of 68 men from the town and surrounding communities. Each of these men…be they farmers or bankers, tailors or students…paid the supreme sacrifice in the service of their fellow countrymen. Remember them.