From Grand River Street to the Trenches of the First World War
Neil Edwards
Paris Independent Contributor
Walter Rowe was born on May 3, 1897 in Nottingham England, the son of Walter Rowe Sr. and Elizabeth Allgood. (Members of the family have their surname spelled either Rowe or Row.) He emigrated to Paris with his parents in 1907, probably in response to the Penmans recruiting drive. When he enlisted, he had three brothers and five sisters, and they lived at 29 Grand River Street South. He was a member of the St. James Anglican Church choir as well as the Bible class.
Walter first tried to enlist when he was too young, was turned away, and later returned when he was 18. At the time of his enlistment, he was working as a shoe repairer in his father’s shop on Grand River Street North. Walter attended Paris military camp in 1915 with 65 others, and in July 1915, he enlisted with the 38th Dufferin Rifles. When he arrived in England, Walter was transferred to the Canadian 24th Battalion (Victoria Rifles of Canada). The battalion had arrived in France in September 1915 and was fighting in the Ypres Salient. These transfers of Canadian soldiers immediately after their arrival in England were common and done in order to fill the places of soldiers at the front who had been killed or wounded.
The Ypres Salient was a heavily contested bulge in the Allied lines around the city of Ypres, Belgium, during World War I, where German forces held advantageous high ground on three sides. This area saw intense fighting, including the first major use of chlorine gas in April 1915, shortly before Walter arrived, during the Second Battle of Ypres, in which Canadian troops earned recognition for their determined defence. The Ypres Salient became a symbol of brutal warfare, resulting in a desolate landscape and numerous casualties on both sides. The battles in the Ypres Salient were characterized by harsh trench warfare in difficult conditions due to the mud and low-lying ground of Flanders.
The Battle of Mount Sorrel (June 2–13, 1916) was a localized but exceptionally brutal World War I engagement fought in the Ypres Salient. It pitted the Canadian Corps, including the 24th Battalion, against the German 4th Army, resulting in over 8,400 Canadian casualties. On June 2, the Germans had unleashed a terrifyingly dense artillery bombardment, described by survivors as a "hurricane of shellfire", on Canadian positions. Following an unsuccessful counterattack on June 3, Major-General Arthur Currie, leader of the 1st Canadian Division, took over a week to meticulously plan a massive, coordinated strike. At 1:30 AM on June 13, under a pitch-black sky and torrential rain, the final Canadian assault was launched. The plan worked perfectly. Driven by intense artillery coordination, Canadian troops rushed up the slopes, caught the Germans by surprise, and recaptured virtually all lost positions within a single hour.
Because the attack was successful, the German retaliation was severe. The 24th Battalion remained stuck in their open, flattened positions, absorbing heavy shellfire while trying to fortify the newly won ground. They had been actively pushed into these heavily shelled sectors to secure the re-established front lines. These deadly artillery barrages claimed Private Walter Rowe's life on June 16.
In the horrifying and desolate conditions of the battlefield, Walter’s body was never recovered. His name can be found inscribed among the other fallen soldiers of his battalion at the Menin Gate Memorial, situated at the eastern side of the town of Ypres (now Ieper) in the Province of West Flander. It bears the names of 55,000 men from the British Empire who were lost without trace during the defence of the Ypres Salient in the First World War. The dead are remembered to this day in a simple ceremony that takes place every evening at 8:00 p.m. All traffic through the gateway in either direction is halted, and two buglers (on special occasions four) move to the centre of the Hall and sound the Last Post. Two silver trumpets for use in the ceremony are a gift to the Ypres Last Post Committee by an officer of the Royal Canadian Artillery, who served with the 10th Battery, of St. Catharines, Ontario, in Ypres in April 1915. When he died, Walter was 19 years old.
Walter’s parents are buried in the St. James Anglican Church cemetery and Walter’s death is memorialized on their headstone. In 2006, Brant County, honouring members of the community who gave their lives in the First World War, named a new street, Row Lane, after Walter. Homes of Heroes believes that all our veterans need to be remembered. You can read more of their stories on our website, www.homesofheroes.ca.
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