Earl D Morris wore the war for life
First World War veteran survived several captures by German forces, including agonizing work in the salt mines, becoming known as a PoW escape artist by war’s end
Medicine Hat First World War veteran Earl David Morris fought with the 10 Battalion at the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915. It was Canada’s first trial by fire in the war, and it is the moment remembered in history when the Germans launched the first ever chlorine gas attack.
“When Earl David arrived in Belgium he very quickly got immersed in the Second Battle of Ypres,” recalls his nephew and namesake Earl Morris. “It was a brutal battle. He partially succumbed to the gas. He had a minor lung disability for the rest of his life. The only story I recall from my father is Earl David had been at machine gun post, and had been captured. That’s probably where he sustained the bayonet wound to his arm which is recorded in his medical history.”
Captured by the enemy and held prisoner for the next three years, Earl David proved you couldn’t keep a good man down, successfully escaping numerous times from several PoW camps.
One escape was particularly memorable, says Morris.
“My father (Ed) and his brother were apparently the best of friends, and they liked to canoe in the South Saskatchewan River together,” recounts Morris. “There they spent time doing foolish things like brothers would do such as tipping each other over in the boat. So they both really learned how to climb back in the canoe.
“During one of his several escapes from a prisoner of war camp, Earl David was captured by German officers who, in turn, had to take him across a body of water. Halfway through the passage across, he dumped the boat, and dumped the officer and German soldiers into the water. And then he swam for shore and escaped from them.”
But as good as Earl David was at a escaping, he wasn’t quite as successful at staying at liberty. The Germans finally ran out of patience with him and sent him to the most deadly gulag they had at their disposal at the time: The salt mines. The corrosive atmosphere and poor conditions of his confinement took a severe toll on Earl David’s health, and, in the end, broke him.
“He was breaking out in boils on his shoulders and back, and having salt water dripping into them was not very good,” says Morris. “When a German doctor realized Earl David wasn’t going to survive, he pulled him out of that salt mine. He moved my uncle to a farm which was owned by German farmers who had a son who had been killed in the war.”
The farmers treated Earl David well, and gave him a new perspective on the war.
“Which is why, after the fact, he would never talk ill of the German people,” remembers Morris.
“...he would never talk ill of the German people,” – Earl Morris, nephew and namesake of First World War vet Earl David Morris
When Earl David came back home to Medicine Hat after his long years of confinement, he felt he could no longer fit in with his old life as a hardware store clerk. He moved to Oakland and spent the rest of his working days as a shipbuilder. After his death in 1958 his family brought his ashes back to Medicine Hat to be buried.