RIDING INTO WAR: THE MEMOIR OF A HORSE TRANSPORT DRIVER, 1916-1919 James Robert Johnston, assisted by Brent Wilson (Fredericton: Goose Lanes Editions & the New Brunswick
Military Heritage Project, 2004), Soft Cover, 103 pages with 25 photographs, one drawing and 3 maps, $14.95 CAD, ISBN 0-86492-412-7
The New Brunswick Military Heritage Project is a non-profit organization devoted to increasing the public awareness of the military heritage of New Brunswick. It is an initiative of the Military and Strategic Studies program of the University of New Brunswick and supported by the Canadian War Museum. This book is Volume Four of a series.
The author was born and raised on a farm at Notre Dame, near Moncton, NB. He joined the army at 18 and served at Vimy, Hill 70, Passchendaele, Amiens and Valenciennes. During a 1964 visit to these WW1 battlefields, he kept a journal recording his wartime recollections, which are the basis for this book. Mr Johnston passed away in 1976 and it was his family who brought forward that journal. Mr Wilson accurately introduces the book by stating that Mr Johnston's "memoir is not a history of the war; rather it is an account of his own wartime experiences" (1) that recount events that occurred to him as an individual set in chronological order.
The story starts with Mr Johnston's early years growing up in Moncton NB and Massachusetts, US. In April 1916 he joined the 145th Battalion and trained in Canada and, after crossing to England in September, in Kent. In November Private Johnston arrived in France and joined the 26th New Brunswick Battalion. In January 1917, he volunteered for the new Canadian Machine Gun (MG) Corps and joined the 14th MG Coy horse mounted transport section on the Vimy front during the preparations for the coming offensive. The rest of 1917 was spent with 14th MG Coy as it supported 2nd Canadian Division at Vimy Ridge & Passchendaele. In November 1917 his company was withdrawn from the Ypres front and returned to the routine of trench warfare at Vimy and Lens.
Pte Johnston developed mumps in March 1918 and was in hospital until June 1918. He returned to the front to find that he has been transferred to the 4th Canadian MG Battalion, although still in the transport platoon. In July his unit moved to Vimy to participate in the Amiens offensive, which was followed by the August 1918 allied advance. Pte Johnston remained with 4th Canadian MG Battalion as it fought at the Drocourt-Queant Line (SE of Arras) and Bourlon Wood (near Cambrai), crossed the Canal de la Sensee (north of Cambrai) and ended the war at Valenciennes. In December his unit moved near Brussels where it remained until the spring of 1919. In April 1919, Pte Johnston was attached to the 44th Battalion from New Brunswick for his return to Canada via England, where he was discharged in June 1919.
Riding into War was created as a tribute to the bond between the horses and men that served together during WW1. As well as a chronological wander through the battles in which Pte Johnston took part, the book offers an excellent view of life in the support echelon of a non-mechanized army. It gives the reader a glimpse at how a typical soldier survived two years in the mud and the blood of the trench lines riding one horse of a pair through many assorted perils to deliver ammunition and supplies to the men in the trenches. There is humour, sometime slightly macabre, in that survival and sadness, especially with stories of shell shocked or wounded horses. The photographs are mostly personal glimpses that help the reader visualize what he is reading about while the maps are general in nature and help with geographical orientation.
In the introduction, Mr Wilson offers the view that Riding into War offers strengths in three areas: the portrayal of a passage of a young man from recruit to old soldier, an accurate description of what soldiering on the battlefields of WW1 was like and an opportunity to learn about the supply lifeline to the most forward areas of the WW1 battlefield--horse transport. I concur and recommend it. This is not a long or intense reading experience nor does it take a great deal of time to complete.
Endnote
(1.) Johnston, James Robert, Riding into War, (Fredericton: Goose Lanes Editions, 2004), p.10.
COPYRIGHT 2006 Canadian Army Journal
Copyright 2006, Gale Group. All rights reserved. Gale Group is a Thomson Corporation Company.
review of an interesting new book
On the topic of WWI, I noticed an advertisement for a new WWI museum in Kansas City. I recently visited the "Arabia" steamboat museum in KC and would have gone to WWI museum had I but known. Anyone visited the museum?
Bob Rea
Bob Rea