Galt hero died as he lived, leading his men
Jim Campbell was killed 100 years ago today at Passchendaele
CAMBRIDGE — Jim Campbell pretended to lead his three sisters to the Klondike Gold Rush when they were children. His father harnessed the farm dog to a toy sled so Jim could take the reins.
After Campbell grew up to become an engineer, he led construction crews in the building of railways in Saskatchewan and sewers in Burlington.
After he joined the First World War, he steadied shaken men under his command while the enemy shelled them. He carried a wounded man to safety on his back for nearly a mile over shell-swept terrain in the dark.
When given a chance to escape trench horrors, he chose to stay put in the mud to lead his men through one more battle.
Jim Campbell was born to lead. His battlefield gallantry earned him a Military Cross.
It also cost him his life when he became the first local soldier to die in the battle for Passchendaele a century ago.
“There have been multiple conversations around the dinner table about how the family would have been different had he been able to return,” said Bruce MacDonald, Campbell’s grand nephew.
His family has concluded that by his sacrifice, Campbell made their lives better.
“I think we as a family feel that we owe a debt because of the way we are able to live today, the freedoms that we have today,” said MacDonald, 62.
The battle for Passchendaele killed 35 Waterloo County soldiers in 16 days after
Canada joined an Allied offensive underway since July 1917. Local soldiers arrived in October to fight above a stew of mud and rotting corpses. They captured the Belgian town of Passchendaele on Nov. 6, 1917.
The offensive ended five days later. The Allies failed to break through German lines, advancing just seven kilometres along the Western Front. Five months later, the Germans regained all the ground they lost and more.
John James Campbell was born in Galt (now Cambridge) to a farming family that prized education. He went from a one-room schoolhouse to Galt Collegiate Institute to the University of Toronto, earning a civil engineering degree in 1914.
His family called him Jim. His friends called him J.J. His high school classmates called him a fellow “of a reserved and studious nature” in their yearbook. He was a strong leader, skills the army quickly noticed in making him a lieutenant in the artillery after he volunteered as a private in 1916.
“Jim was very serious, very focused,” MacDonald said. “I don’t think we have a single picture of him smiling.”
Campbell reached the Western Front in 1916 to fight at the Somme in France. He fought at Vimy Ridge in April 1917. The brigade’s war diary notes his good work at Vimy as a forward observer for the artillery, staying with the infantry to help the guns aim their shells. He fought at Hill 70 in August 1917.
He scribbled on wartime maps, calculating ranges and monitoring the wear on guns that fired countless shells. He fretted about men under his command, concerned about medical care for wounded comrades. At his urging, his sisters became nurses. One served in France during the war.
Before he was ordered to Passchendaele, Campbell requested a transfer to the Royal Flying Corps. Becoming a pilot would have taken him from the trenches. The army approved his immediate transfer to the flying corps on Oct. 19, 2017.
With a major battle looming, Campbell felt he could not abandon his men. The next day he suffered a minor wound. Still he refused to leave his post.
“Realizing that the recent losses of several Officers in the Brigade was leaving it rather short for the pending operations, Lt. Campbell decided to remain with the unit and gave up the idea of a transfer for the present,” his brigade noted in its war diary.
In the rain on the morning of Oct. 26, 1917, his brigade began shelling the enemy in support of the advancing infantry. The enemy fired back. A shell killed Campbell at his gun. He was among two killed and 11 wounded in his unit 100 years ago.
An artillery sergeant also from Galt sewed Campbell’s remains into a blanket for burial. That sergeant survived the war, returning home to marry Campbell’s sister Sarah. He was Bruce MacDonald’s grandfather.
In April 1918 Britain explained why the dead Galt hero had earned a medal.
“For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty during five days’ operations. Though the shelling was almost continuous, and the casualties heavy, he steadied the men, who were badly shaken, and did much to avert further casualties.
When he was returning at night from the outposts with two signallers, a shell killed one of them and badly wounded the other. He carried this wounded man on his back for nearly a mile, through a shell-swept area over difficult country in the dark.”
MacDonald, who lives in Tennessee, has the Bible his great uncle took to the Western Front. He has the Military Cross.
The army also sent home the wallet Campbell kept in the breast pocket of his tunic. It was riddled by shrapnel and stained by blood.