Dewart John Alexander

Captain John Alexander Dewart

John Alexander Dewart was born on July 16, 1892 in the south of Dummer Township to parents John Dewart and Margaret Madill.  His parents were farmers and John jr. was the youngest of 7 children.  John grew up on the family farm near Warsaw, but later left to pursue a career as a school teacher.

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At the outbreak of the War, John Dewart was working as a principal of a school in Niagara Falls.  He was also active in the local militia, the 44^th Lincoln and Welland Regiment.   On September 17, 1915, Dewart enlisted for overseas service in the Canadian Expeditionary Force at Welland, Ontario.  He was 23 years old, stood five foot ten inches tall.  His looks gave away his Irish heritage as he was recorded as having a fair complexion, blue eyes and red hair.   He indicated that at the time he had been a member of the 44^th Welland Militia for 5 years and his religion was Methodist.

Dewart was commissioned as a Captain in the 86^th Machine Gun Battalion of Hamilton and sailed overseas with them on May 19 1916.  Upon arriving in England he was reassigned to the 2^nd Company, 1^st Canadian Machine Gun Battalion where he was reduced in rank to a Lieutenant.  He would later arrive in France on November 29 1916 with this unit, and within a week, he was positioning his guns in the front line trenches in front of the city of Givenchy, France.

The next 5 months would be spent holding the line below the German positions on Vimy Ridge.  There Dewart would have spent regular intervals in the trenches and in the rear training for the upcoming assault on the Ridge.  The Battalion War Diaries show that Lieutenant Dewart was the officer commanding Machine Gun section D.  On the opening day of the attack his machine gun crews followed closely behind the attacking troops providing support. Lieut. Dewart wrote home after the battle on April 22^nd 1917, describing his experience:

“I had the good fortune to come through the recent battle untouched. I took my section over in the advance along with the infantry, and was the only officer of the company to do so. It was a wonderful show. Our fellows did well, but the artillery was past imagination.  My men captured quite a number of prisoners. I went into the dugouts and found them full of Huns, but they would not fight, but begged for mercy. We made them carry out our wounded.  I established my headquarters in a German officer’s dugout, and we found eggs, bacon, bread, etc., also plenty of cigars and cigarettes, so we are in luck as we went over light.”

In a letter home a week later on May 4th, Lieut. Dewart’s cheery outlook of the Vimy campaign changed considerably after enduring relentless enemy shelling and countless German counter attacks trying to regain lost ground:

“I have been through the whole performance since the beginning, and believe me, at times there seemed remote chances of ever seeing Canada again. The last tour was the worst I have ever experienced, and I was in a terribly hot corner.  However, we pulled through without a very large number of casualties. In one case while repelling a counter-attack, there were men wounded on both sides, and I would have had a wound too, but for a flask which was in my hip pocket and broke the force of the shrapnel bullet.  The fighting was of the bitterest nature, and Fritz is dying gamely. His picked troops, Guards, etc. were opposed to us, and contested every inch of ground, but nothing can stop our boys. Fritz is losing men in the thousands, launching counter-attacks which never succeed on account of our artillery and machine guns. Our air service too, is wonderful, and our aviators are doing marvellous work.  The fighting now is in the open, but it is much worse as there is no protection against shell fire, and the amount of stuff flying around would make one wonder how anyone could live through it.”

During the Battle of Passchendaele in November of 1917, Dewart was wounded and later awarded the Military Cross for Bravery.  After the war, a Red Cross man who came to his aid while wounded, related a story and produced a piece of shrapnel that had been buried in Dewart’s thigh.  He told a story that after dressing Capt. Dewart’s wound, the Red Cross man ordered four German prisoners to carry him on a stretcher to an ambulance.  German planes also were operating overhead and dropped a bomb on the ambulance destroying it and causing the Germans to drop their precious cargo and scatter.  Captain Dewart’s wound was reopened from this action and bled profusely; Soon after the German prisoners were compelled to come back and compelled to carry the wounded man back to the nearest dressing station and safety.  It must have been a superficial wound, because there is no indication of a hospital stay at that time for Lieut. Dewart.

Examiner May 08 1919

On December 3rd 1917, Lieut. Dewart was sent to the Queen Alexandria Military Hospital in Millbank England with bronchial complications and a bad cough.  He was granted two weeks leave, but left for the front on December12^th after appealing to a Medical Board to be let out early.  His conditions came back a few months later and prompted him to enter No.7 Casualty Station on April 26 with bronchitis.  His illness was serious enough to be sent to No. 20 General Hospital in Camiers where he stayed unitl being discharged on May 10.

He was later severely wounded in the Battle of Cambrai, when the 1^st Canadian Division crossed the Canal de Nord, on September 27, 1918.  He attended No. 14 General Hospital at Wimereux on the 29^th and was later sent to the 3^rd London General Red Cross Hospital in London with what was later described as a superficial gunshot wound, 2 inches square,  in the right buttock. He spent 30 days until being moved to the I.O.D.E. Hospital in Hyde Park on October 29^th.  He then attended Perkins Bull Hospital in Putney South Wales on November 16 1918.  Lieut. Dewart was ultimately transferred to No.7 Casualty Clearing station at Matlock, Bath for his final convalescence.   He was discharged to duty with no disability on the 5^th of December 1918.

Lieut. John Dewart returned home in January of 1919.  He resided in Toronto for a time working for the Imperial Oil Company.  He returned to Peterborough sometime in the early 1920’s and married Emily Ballard of Madoc, a fellow teacher, on July 31, 1923. 

Sources:

1901 Ontario East Census: Dummer Township, Peterborough County. Page 14, Family 14 No.140

Original data: Canada. "Complete Military Service File of John Alexander Dewart" RG 150, Accession 1992-93/166, Box 2494 – 41.Item number 352938 . Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa.

Archives of Ontario. Registrations of Births and Still births-1869-1913. MS 929, reels 1-245. Toronto, Ontario, Canada

1911 Census. Douro Township. Peterborough East, Ontario, page 4, Family No.34.

Peterborough Evening Examiner. “Record of Former Peterboro Man”. May 08 1919. P.5

Peterborough Evening Examiner. “Warsaw Boy Came Through Vimy Ridge Untouched.” June 13 1917. P.7

Peterborough Evening Examiner. “A Shrapnel Memento. December 06 1921. P.3