Alexander
Cooper Jackson died on 8 August 1918. The significance of that date is that it
was the first day of the Battle of Amiens, the opening
phase of the Allied offensive on the Western Front which was to eventually push
the Germans out of France and end the war. This part of the war was to be known
as the Hundred Days Offensive.
I
mentioned Alexander in a previous post on 11 November 2018, titled Cooper Family Soldiers. The post briefly
related the stories of four of my wife’s family who served in the military, two
of them dying in France in World War I. Alexander Cooper Jackson was my wife’s
second cousin, once removed.
In
a subsequent post, War Diaries and
Trench Maps from WWI,
I highlighted the area of the battle near Auchy, France, in which Alexander
Cooper Jr. died on 3 April 1916, as well as the use of war diaries available on
Ancestry and trench maps from the National Library of Scotland
(NLS) website.
This
story also involves a review of war diaries, this time for the 78th
Battalion Canadian Infantry, which was part of ten Allied divisions from
Australia, Canada, Britain and France involved in the Amiens attack. The NLS
trench maps are again useful in showing where the 78th Battalion
fought.
Alexander
Cooper Jackson immigrated to Canada in 1912 from Govan, Scotland, to join his
aunt, Margaret (Jackson) MacDonald, in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He joined the Winnipeg
Grenadiers,
on 1 July 1915, just after his 17th birthday. The Grenadiers would
become part of the 78th
Battalion
on 10 July 1915, itself part of the Canadian
Expeditionary Force.
The battalion embarked for Europe on 20 May 1916 aboard the Empress of
Britain. There is a complete record of the battalion’s activities in war
diaries held by Library and Archives Canada in its Collections and
Fonds – 1883275.
LAC also has on file battle and other
maps
associated with WWI.
Left: 78th Canadian Infantry Battalion cap badge, Winnipeg Grenadiers; Right: A company of the
100th Winnipeg Grenadiers 1915; source Jeff Jonas, retrieved 10 May 2020 from World War One: A
distant memory
website; it is not known whether Alexander is in this photo
The 78th Battalion fought in areas all along the Western Front, beginning in Belgium, in August 1916, just after the Battle of the Somme. In September 1916, they moved into France, advancing to the front lines near Bouzincourt. They were part of the Battle of Ancre in November 1916, the final large British Attack of the Somme Operations, and were involved in fighting in many front line postings around Arras and Souchez.
On
9 April 1917, as part of the 12th Brigade, 4th Canadian
Division, the 78th Battalion participated in the Battle of Vimy
Ridge
(north end of attack), taking the area with other Canadian brigades over the
next five days. They continued fighting in the area through September 1917,
gradually moving the Allied position further east. Alexander took part in all
of these engagements.
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Part of map: Vimy
Ridge, April 9–12, 1917 Source: Gerald W.L. Nicholson, Canadian Expeditionary
Force, 1914-1919: The Official History of the Canadian Army in the First World
War (1962); retrieved 10 May 2020 from Library and
Archives Canada
In
October 1917, the 78th Battalion was briefly posted to Belgium
again, as part of the Battle of
Passchendaele.
In
November 1917 they were returned to the Souchez area where they stayed to man
the trenches into 1918. It was that region, in the Battle of Amiens, that Alexander
was killed.
 |
Part of map from War
Museum of Canada
showing the advances of the Australian, Canadian and French forces during the
Battle of Amiens in August 1918; red ‘X’ marks probable location of the death
of Alexander Cooper Jackson; red ‘C’ marks Caix British Cemetery where
Alexander was buried
The
circumstances stated on Alexander’s service record indicate “He was with his battalion following up the
general advance on the morning of August 8th, 1918. On reaching the
village of Hangard the enemy dropped a barrage of heavy shells instantly
killing Private Jackson and six others.” He was buried in the Caix British
Cemetery, France, seven miles to the east, together with seven of his battalion
brothers. The cemetery is located around the spot the Allied army had reached
by the end of the day of the 8th.
The
particular operations in the Battle of Amiens in which Alexander
participated was code-named, Llandovery Castle, in honour of the Canadian hospital ship of that name
which had been torpedoed and sunk on 27 June 1918. A total of 23 men were
killed on the first day, August 8th, including one officer. Another 101
were wounded and two were reported missing. By the end of the operation on 11
August, a total of 51 men of the 78th Battalion had been killed, 209
wounded and 55 were missing in action.
A
full report of the days operations was written by Lieutenant Colonel James
Kirkaldy, part of the battalion’s war diaries. It began: “Sharp at 5.30 A.H.
on the morning of the 8th the Battalion moved from its jumping off position E.
of the B. de GENTELLES towards HANGARD Village where it was to make a crossing
of the RIVER LUCE. This was accomplished by all Companies by 7.35 A.H. and with
very slight casualties. The Battalion Headquarters crossed the river about half
an hour later suffering a number of casualties N. of HANGARD WOOD during its
advance.” And that is where Alexander fell.
When
reading the war diaries, it is difficult to imagine the conditions under which
these young men lived: cold and wet weather for days on end; limited rations; digging,
cleaning and slogging through narrow trenches along the front lines; long days
of boredom; brief respites when a bath and clean underwear even weekly were
highlights; enduring bombardments; and participating in the horrors of battle.
We
remember these men through family correspondence, stories told by military
historians, in brief dispatches and diaries kept by their comrades and in short
reports of their lives published in their home newspapers. And we honour them
as brave ancestors dedicated to fighting for freedom and democracy.
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Source: Winnipeg
Evening Tribune, 3 September 1918
