5-foot-3 gunner stood like a giant
Faus Metcalf didn’t let height nor illness prevent him from duty in 1918 France
Six years ago, the Citizen created We Are The Dead, a Twitter account that issues one name at 11 minutes past every hour from the list of 119,531 uniformed Canadians who have lost their lives in service to their country. For the past six years the Citizen has profiled the fallen soldier whose name is generated at 11:11 a.m. on Remembrance Day. This year, we bring the story of Faus Metcalf to Canadians 99 years after his death.
Young Faus Metcalf was late to the war.
He had just turned 18 when he enlisted in his hometown of Cobourg, in southern Ontario. It was Jan. 31, 1917, and the First World War was already into its third year of blood and carnage.
So many had already died in the fields of France that Metcalf was accepted as a gunner, even though he had to stand on his tiptoes to meet the requirements.
When the war began in 1914, the Canadian military said its gunners had to stand 5-foot-7 in order to manage the heavy labour involved in feeding an artillery piece, hour after hour, day after day. By early 1917, however, that standard had dropped to 5-foot-4. (It would return later in the war to 5-foot-7.)
The blue-eyed Metcalf stood just 5-foot-3.
He would die at the beginning of the end of the war. Metcalf was killed in August 1918 during the Second Battle of Arras at the start of a decisive offensive known as The Hundred Days. Canadian soldiers would play a central role in that campaign and suffer heavy casualties.
Metcalf, a farmer who had yet to marry or have children, was one of those who gave his life so that the guns in Europe could finally fall silent on Nov. 11, 1918.
As it happened, that was also Metcalf ’s birthday. He would have turned 20 years old on that first Armistice Day.
“He died without having lived really — without a chance to live,” Helga Metcalf, 77, a relative in Kelowna, B.C., said in an interview.
Faus Metcalf was the fifth child born to William and Annie Metcalf on Nov. 11, 1898, in Cobourg.
The couple married in November 1888, the same year that Annie came to Canada from England. William Metcalf, a farmer and a weaver at a mat factory, was 22 and his bride was 19. They would go on to have 10 children.
Helga Metcalf said the family rarely talked about their lost relative, Faus, or his wartime sacrifice. “It was never brought up at all,” she said.
Faus Metcalf was a small and sturdy 130 pounds when he enlisted. He trained for three months with the Cobourg Heavy Battery, and sailed for war aboard the troop ship, S.S. Canada. It left Halifax Harbour on April 10, 1917, and arrived 12 days later in Liverpool, England.
Metcalf reported to Shorncliffe Army Camp, then Camp Witely, where he continued his training until being sent to France in late October 1917.
His military records reveal that in March 1918 he spent some time in hospital with a bacterial infection, which could have serious consequences in a time before the invention of penicillin, the first antibiotic. He was back in the war by April as Germany launched its spring offensive aimed at ending the war before the new infusion of U.S. troops could have an impact on the Western Front.
The Allies successfully defended the German onslaught then launched a counteroffensive in August 1918 that began with a victory at Amiens.
That breathtaking victory — it became known as the “black day” of the Germany army — gave Allied leaders the first hint that the Germans might be nearing collapse. Most had expected the war to last another year or two. The Allies decided to press their advantage with a broad offensive.
The 10th Brigade of the Canadian Field Artillery was assigned to take part in that offensive and cover an attack by the 3rd Canadian Division in the Arras sector. The Canadians, led by General Sir Arthur Currie, were to act as spearhead for the assault.
Their job was to outflank the German positions in the Arras front and push them from the heavily fortified Hindenburg Line.
The attack began at 3 a.m. on Aug. 26. Heavy rains muddied the fields and roads. Still, the Canadians made steady gains and the artillery guns were ordered to forward positions.
On the morning of Aug. 29, a 10th Brigade battery was ordered to move positions, but en route it ran into “a blockage in traffic,” according to the brigade’s official war diaries held by Library and Archives Canada. While it was bogged down and exposed, the battery was hit by German shells. Seven Canadian soldiers were killed; it’s believed that Metcalf was among the dead.
The 10th Brigade lost eight soldiers during the battle while firing more than 13,000 shells to help cover the successful advance of the Canadian Corps.
The Second Battle of Arras concluded on Sept. 3, 1918. It was one among a stunning succession of Allied victories that brought about the end of the war.
“The movement was very quick,” said Royal Military College history professor Michael Boire. “The Canadian Corps found its rhythm. It has been four long years of war and they finally mastered the skills that allowed them to get over the Germans.”
The Allies had learned to co-ordinate their advances with a creeping artillery barrage, and to employ tanks and aircraft to bolster their infantry attacks.
“It really is the moment when all of the experiences of 1915, 1916 and 1917 come together,” Boire said. “We were on top of our game: We had finally mastered the symphony of war.”
The Canadian Corps, he said, played a pivotal role during The Hundred Days but paid an enormous cost: More than 3,000 Canadian soldiers lost their lives in September 1918.
In his will, Faus Metcalf bequeathed all of his worldly possessions to his youngest brother, Clifford. As a gunner, he was paid a $15 a month, and military records indicate that $123 was transferred back to Canada after his death.
He’s buried in Arras, France. in the Faubourg d’Amiens Military Cemetery.