Captain William Arthur Peel Durie died near Hill 70 in France in late December 1917. [LAC]

Undying love, Part 2: A grieving mother secrets her Great War soldier son’s remains home to Canada

STORY BY STEPHEN J. THORNE

Three years later to the day of Captain William Arthur Peel Durie’s death, a soldier wrote Durie’s mother Anna to tell her details of how “Bill” died as he made his way along the communication trench a half-hour into the attack.

“In December we were ordered to the Trenches in a very wicked part of the line just North of ‘Lens,’” W.H. Edwards wrote in 1920, “and on December 29, 1917, the ‘Hun’ placed a very heavy Gunfire ‘barrage’ on our front, resulting in Bills’ [sic] men catching it very heavy.

“As usual, he was out in it all, encouraging his men, when he could have been lying in his dugout under cover, but not him, out he went, collected the few men left, and stayed with them, until his sergeant remonstrated with him to get below, he refused to leave and was struck down, resulting in the loss of the biggest man the Battalion ever had.”

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Historian Debbie Jiang poses with photos of Japanese-Canadian WW I veterans Hikotaro Koyanagi and Kazuo Harada whose names were added to the cenotaph in Richmond, B.C., in October 2024. [Courtesy Debbie Jiang]

Forgotten Japanese-Canadian soldiers added to Richmond, B.C., cenotaph

STORY BY ALEX BOWERS

Richmond, B.C., historian Debbie Jiang used to gaze upon the local cenotaph in traffic. “Every time I drove by,” she said to Legion Magazine, “I’d stop at a red light on No. 3 Road. There, I’d look at the side displaying the First World War. It always got me wondering if there could potentially be missing names.”

She was right on at least two counts—and potentially, indeed likely, more.

Japanese-Canadian soldiers Hikotaro Koyanagi and Kazuo Harada fought and died within nine months of each other during the Great War. Both adorned the uniform of a country that didn’t allow them to vote, that denied them the equal rights afforded to a sizable proportion of white compatriots, and treated them like second-class citizens—or frequently, worse. Yet die for Canada they did.

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Anna Bella Durie repatriated her soldier
son’s remains from France after WW I. [Photo: City of Toronto Archives]

Undying love, Part 1: A grieving mother secrets her Great War soldier son’s remains home to Canada

STORY BY STEPHEN J. THORNE

In the dark of a summer’s night in 1925, four shadowy figures—two women and two men—stole into the Loos British Cemetery in Loos-en-Gohelle, France, dug up grave no. 19 in plot 20, row G, broke open one end of the coffin, dragged out the remains therein, and made off with them in a sack.

The bones were those of Captain William Arthur Peel Durie, a former Toronto bank clerk who had commanded ‘A’ Company, 58th (Central Ontario) Battalion. He had fought at Vimy Ridge, Passchendaele and Hill 70. The women were his sister Helen and his doting and, the evidence suggests, difficult mother, Anna Bella Durie.

Anna recognized the remains of the son she called her “poor darling bunny” by the boots she had bought him for Christmas just days before he died.

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Canadian crew members of 159 Squadron, Royal Air Force, in Burma on March 6, 1945.
[DND/PL-60366]

WW II researcher on Canadian airmen in Burma

STORY BY ALEX BOWERS

Canadian researcher Norma Graham understands that in the world of history, not least that surrounding Canada’s centuries-old military heritage, you’re a student for life, always learning and open to new ideas—and never admitting to knowing it all.

For years, the retired librarian from southern Ontario had fostered an interest in the country’s wartime efforts. It wasn’t until 2020, however, that she discovered a large and growing online community of WW II history buffs that had coalesced around the podcast “We Have Ways of Making You Talk.” Starring British historian James Holland and comedian Al Murray discussing various related topics, Graham had indeed found her people, later vowing to attend their annual festival in England.

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