Signaller Percy McCracken
33rd Battery Canadian Field Artillery/ 12th Artillery Brigade
Regimental Number 304012
Percy Howard McCracken was born on July 20th,
1896 to parents Frank and Elizabeth McCracken in Dummer Township, Ontario.
Percy was one of a number of Peterborough men to make the
journey to Kingston to enlist with the 33rd Battery Canadian Field
Artillery on October 25th 1915.
He was 19 years old, stood 5 foot 5 inches tall and weighed 116 pounds. He had brown hair, blue eyes and a brown
complexion. He listed his occupation as a
canoe builder and his religion as Methodist.
He had no previous military experience.
Percy was living in the city of Peterborough at the time of his enlistment.
Percy continued to live and train with the artillery at
Barriefield Camp, Kingston before being shipped overseas. McCracken arrived in England on the 29th
of December, 1915 and was stationed in the Reserve Camp at Shorncliffe. After some time at camp learning the art of
war, Percy was assigned as a reinforcement to the 4.5 Howitzer Battery in
France. He left England on July 28th
and joined the Divisional Ammunition Column in France a day later. He remained with that unit before being
transferred to the 12th Artillery Brigade on August 19th.
Percy remained with the 12th Artillery Brigade for
close to seven months in France. A
letter home during this time expresses some of his reminisces friends and
family during the approach of Christmas.
The mention of talking over the telephone, as well as Percy’s rank of
Signaller at the bottom of the letter, indicate that he was already Percy preforming
the role as a telephone signaller between the front line artillery and the 12th
Brigade Headquarters.
“H.O.S. 12th
Brigade, C.E.F.
1st
Can. Division, 304012
France, Nov.
11th.
Dear
Mother,- Just a few lines to let you know I am well, hoping you are all the same.
I have not had a letter from you in about a week now, but I expect one before
long. I had a letter from Lottie Hamilton a few days ago, also one from Burwell
Moore. In the last letter from Ethel, she told me that Stan Smith was dead. I
was very sorry to hear it. I knew he had been wounded, but did not know whether
he was dead or not. I guess his wife will feel pretty bad over him. I also saw where Brent Morris was dead. He
was a fine fellow. He was up to camp with us the time I was at the lakes. I was
talking to Bert over the telephone the other day. He was well then. I met Charlie
Sharpe one day last week. He was just out here a short time. He looks pretty
well too. What kind of weather are you having over there? Pretty cold I guess. We are having a lot of
rain just at present. There is a heavy mist forming, I will expect that it will
turn to rain before it is finished.
Well I
guess you will be busy getting ready for Christmas by the time you get this
letter. Now I don’t want you to go spending a lot of money buying things to
send out to me, for I will be all right here. Well I am going to ask you would
you please send me some ‘tid-bits’. I like to get a good candy once in a while,
and we can’t buy very much, only chocolate bars over here, so I thought you
would buy me a [?], but I don’t want you to go buying a lot of things for I may
never get them at all. I only wish that I was in a place where I could buy something
to send to you, for you have been awfully good to me, sending me so many boxes
over., but I hope to be able to pay you back your kindness someday, I don’t
want you to worry about me, for I am all right over here. I don’t see very much
excitement.
Well, I
guess I’ll have to come to a close as news is very scarce around here,
Sig, P.H.
McCracken.”
Percy was assigned to the 1st Canadian Division
Trench Mortar Battery on March 25th 1917. His experience with the Trench Mortars was
short as after less than two months, he left them to join the 1st Canadian
Division Signal Company. In a letter
home to his sister Dora in Peterborough in July 1917, Percy details the nature
of his service:
“We are
having buried cable to all our batteries now, so that will be a lot easier on
the linemen. We used to have all overhead wires and the shrapnel cut them up
pretty bad. The cable is seven feet
underground all the way. We expect them to finish to-morrow night. They can only work at it at nights from dark
till about 2 a.m. If Fritz saw them in the early day time he would give them
some iron rations, and none of the fellows care for that. The linemen all have to go out and lay the
cable in the trench before the working party gets out there. The working party
is generally infantry. We have had some of the trench mortars digging too. We
are supposed to see that they do it right. It seems funny for us to be giving
orders to the fellows we used to work with.
Ethel asked
me in her letter what I was doing. I was sent from the trench mortars in April
8th to Divisional Signals, where I was attached to April 13th.
I was then sent to 2nd Brigade, where I was attached till about May
15th. I was then transferred
to that Brigade. About three days after I was transferred to the 1st
Divisional Signal Company. About a month later we were all transferred to the
Signal Company of the Canadian Engineers, so I belong to the Signal Company of
the Canadian Engineers, attached to the Artillery. She also asked me if I am on the ‘phones. I
am on the ‘phone part of the time and on the lines part of the time. Being on
the lines I mean that I go out and mend the lines when they get hit with a
shell or get broken.”
Shortly after the letter was written Percy was shown as
attending the Canadian Corps Signal School on July 9th 1917 for
training. After a month he resumed his duties with the Signal Company.
McCracken was awarded the good conduct badge on October 25th,
1917 for a year’s service with no infractions.
He received his first leave to England on December 2nd 1917
and returned without incident two weeks later to join his unit in France.
McCracken was transferred to the Canadian Signal Pool at
the end of March 1918, and remained there until the war ended. He remained in France, but was struck down
with a serious case of influenza on February 22nd 1919 which
sidelined him from duty for close to a month.
After returning to health, McCracken was posted to the Canadian Engineer
Reinforcement Depot in Havre, France on the first of March of 1919 and a month
later was transferred to the camp at Seaford, England.
McCracken remained in England for two more months before
sailing to Canada on May 11th. He was formally discharged from military service
in Kingston on May 22nd, 1919.
Sources
Canada. "Soldiers of the First World War
(1914-1918)." Record Group 150, Accession 1992-93/166, Box 4930 - 35.
Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa.
Library and Archives Canada. Census
of Canada, 1901. Ottawa, Ontario, Canada: Library and Archives Canada,
2004. http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/census/1901/Pages/about-census.aspxl.
Series RG31-C-1. Statistics Canada Fonds. Microfilm reels: T-6428 to T-6556.
Original data: Records of the
Immigration and Naturalization Service, RG 85. Washington, D.C.: National
Archives and Records Administration.
Archives of Ontario. Registrations of
Births and Stillbirths – 1869-1913. MS 929, reels 1-245. Toronto,
Ontario, Canada: Archives of Ontario.
“Important Meeting of Peterboro’ Branch of
the War Veterans”. Peterborough evening Examiner. July 31 1917. P.5
“To-Day’s Military News Continued”
Peterborough Evening Examiner, November 13 1916, P.7
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