‘It’s a story we have to keep telling:’ Stories of service highlighted at Kamloops cenotaph tours

“Every year, we try to do these tours to really focus on how Kamloops connects to the First World War effort, and specifically the Battle of Hill 70 which not a lot of people know about,” Megan Fenkhuber, the museum educator at the Kamloops Museum and Archives, said.

That battle in August 1917 was the first major action fought by the Canadian corps under a Canadian commander – Lt.-Gen. Sir Arthur Currie. Through her research, Fenkhuber said she found 53 Kamloops residents named as being part of the 47th Battalion.

“The Battle of Hill 70 is often known as the Lost Battle,” Fenkhuber added. “We were used as a diversionary tactic to prepare for Passchendaele and in the 47th Battalion of those 53 Kamloops boys, 12 were killed or injured in the three days between Aug. 21 and 23, 1917 in Lens, France.”

Those casualties include Pvt. Fred Lee, who is believed to have been killed in action at the age of 21, likely by artillery fire on Aug. 21, 1917. Lee’s remains were never found, and his name adorns a feature walkway at the Hill 70 Memorial as well as at the Canadian National Vimy Memorial in France.

“I’ve had the opportunity to travel a lot of those battlefields and when I see some of the names that are engraved on our cenotaph and I saw those same names engraved on the Vimy memorial, it really hits home,” Kamloops Legion president Mike Young said. “They enlisted out of patriotic duty.”

In all, there were 189 Kamloops residents who paid the ultimate sacrifice in the First World War, along with 92 others who died in the Second World War. Their names – along with MCpl Erin Doyle, who was killed in Afghanistan in 2008 – are forever adorned on the Battle Street cenotaph.

“We see a lot of sons of those early Kamloops families on here and so getting to know those stories and learn a bit more about those boys literally, some of those were underage,” Fenkhuber said of the First World War soldiers.

“Megan has done an amazing amount of research and it’s a story we have to keep telling because we don’t want to ever forget,” added Young.

Thorpe echoed that sentiment, saying it was “cool” to learn more about the part that Kamloops soldiers played during the World Wars as well as other more recent conflicts like the War in Afghanistan.

“You watch movies and you learn about bigger stories, but you don’t hear about a lot of Canadian input in these wars, so yeah, it kind of hits home a little,” Thorpe said. “It’s been really nice standing here and learning about everything we learned about today.”

Fenkhuber said people who want more information about the city’s military history can reach out to the Kamloops Museum and Archives. She’s also working to get information about the 47th Battalion published online as part of the effort to make these stories more accessible to residents and visitors.

“Kamloops proportionally saw a large number of boys that all went out together [to serve] and it just shows sense of community continues to this day a hundred and something years later, we’re still a strong community that is all about people first and the connection to our roots,” Fenkhuber said.

“There are lots more Kamloops boys for me to dig into so we can tell their stories.”

by Victor Kaisar

‘It’s a story we have to keep telling:’ Stories of service highlighted at Kamloops cenotaph tours

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