Captain Coulson Norman Mitchell, VC

October 1918

It’s been one hundred years since Captain Mitchell earned his Victoria Cross. One of the major roles of the military engineers is to provide mobility to their forces. This includes the construction of bridges and roads. During the night of 8/9 October, Captain Mitchell and a small group captured bridge, which had been set for demolition by the Germans. For this action, he was awarded the Victoria Cross (VC).

October 2018

As the calendar ticks toward 100th anniversary of the end of the Great War, articles are appearing on various activities during those last days of the war. Amongst those articles are several noting Captain Mitchell’s’ activities.

From The Torch, the newsletter of the Friends of the Canadian War Museum, this article.

Captain C.N. Mitchell –Victoria Cross By: Ed Storey

Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba on 11 December 1889, Coulson Norman Mitchell graduated from the University of Manitoba in 1912 with a degree in engineering. He enlisted in the Canadian Engineers as a Sapper on 10 November 1914, and later transferred to the Canadian Overseas Railway Construction Corps. He sailed to Britain in June 1915 and served briefly with his unit in Belgium from August to October.

Back in Britain, Mitchell was promoted to Sergeant in November and commissioned as a Lieutenant in April 1916. He was transferred to the 1st Canadian Tunnelling Company and served in Belgium in tunnelling operations, where he was awarded the Military Cross for his bravery in continuing to lay mines while cut off from his own lines. Mitchell was promoted to Captain in May 1917.

In the summer of 1918, Capt Mitchell’s unit was broken up and its soldiers sent to newly-formed divisional engineer battalions. Mitchell was posted to the 4th Battalion and went on to participate in the major battles of the Canadian Corps.

Captain Mitchell earned his Victoria Cross on the night of 8 to 9 October 1918 while leading a party of sappers on a reconnaissance mission near Cambrai in France. Their task was to venture beyond the Canadian front line to examine bridges over which the Canadian 5th Infantry Brigade proposed to advance, and to prevent their demolition. After finding
one bridge destroyed, Mitchell moved on to the next, which spanned the Canal de l’Escaut. Running across the bridge in total darkness, Mitchell found that it had indeed been prepared for demolition. With a non-commissioned officer he cut the detonation wires and began to remove the explosive charges. When the Germans realized what was happening, they charged toward the bridge but were held off by Mitchell’s sappers until reinforcements arrived. Saving the bridge over the Canal de l’Escaut contributed significantly to the later success of the 5th Infantry Brigade’s offensive operations.

Mitchell returned to Canada in 1919, resumed his civilian engineering career and served briefly in a militia engineer unit. In 1936 he was one of thousands of Canadian pilgrims
to attend the unveiling of the Canadian memorial at Vimy Ridge. While in France he returned to the bridges where he had earned his VC.

During the Second World War, he served in Britain in command of engineer units. In 1943 he returned to Canada as a Lieutenant-Colonel to command an engineer training centre. He left the army in 1946 and returned to his pre-war job with Power Corporation and lived in Montréal, until he retired in 1957.

LCol C.N. Mitchell, VC, MC died in Montreal, Quebec on 17 November 1978, and is the only Canadian Military Engineer to earn the Victoria Cross.

Citations

Lt. Coulson Norman Mitchell, Can Engrs

“For conspicuous gallantry in action. He displayed great courage and skill in countermining against enemy galleries. On one occasion he was cut off from our own lines for twelve hours. He has previously done fine work.”

(London Gazette, no. 1546, 13 February 1917)

Capt. Coulson Norman Mitchell, M.C. 4th Bn, Can Engrs

“For most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty on the night of 8th-9th October, 1918, at the Canal de L’Escaut, north-east of Cambrai. He led a small party ahead  of the first wave of infantry in order to examine the various bridges on the line of approach and, if possible, to prevent their demolition. On reaching the canal he found the bridge already blown up. Under a heavy barrage he crossed to the next bridge, where he cut a number of ‘lead’ wires. Then in total darkness, and unaware of the position or strength of the enemy at the bridgehead, he dashed across the main bridge over the canal. This bridge was found to be heavily charged for demolition, and whilst Capt. Mitchell, assisted by his N.C.O., was cutting the wires, the enemy attempted to rush the bridge in order to blow the charges, whereupon he at once dashed to the assistance of his sentry, who had been wounded, killed three of the enemy, captured 12, and maintained the bridgehead until reinforced. Then under heavy fire he continued his task of cutting wires and removing charges, which he well knew might at any moment have been fired by the enemy. It was entirely due to his valour and decisive action that this important bridge across the canal was saved from destruction.”

(London Gazette, no.31155, 31 January 1919)

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From the Library and Archives Canada Blog – https://thediscoverblog.com/2018/10/08/captain-coulson-norman-mitchell-vc/ a write up on Mitchell. Also included are links to his service file and citations.

A couple of recently published books also briefly mention Mitchell’s actions.

The Selected Papers of Sir Arthur Currie, Diaries, Letters and Report to the Ministry, 1917 – 1933. published 2008, edited by Mark Osborne Humphries. Page 123

Reluctant Warriors: Canadian Conscripts and the Great War, published 2017, Patrick M. Dennis. Pages 165 – 166

The Story of 2 Bn R.C.E. 1940-1945

The following are extracts from the book “The Story of 2 Bn RCE 1940 – 1945”

Foreword

In May 1945 on instruction from the Commanding Officer a committee representing all Coys in the Battalion assembled to discuss the question of a Battalion souvenir.

After much discussion it was decided to publish a book covering the unit’s activities since its formation.

It was agreed that the qualifying period to be eligible for a copy should be three months service with the Battalion between “our” D Day and V.E. Day. It is realized that this arbitrary decision will leave out many well deserving original members and additional copies are being printed- and may be obtained by them on writing to “Executive Officer RCE” N.D.H.Q. Ottawa, stating when and how long they served with the unit.

In the short time available it has not been possible to assemble a complete story of the Battalion but it is hoped this will form a basis for your “Scrap-Book” of World War II.

Chairman – Ma]. S. Slater

Members – Cap. A. W. Lees, M.B.E.

H 39235 RSM Lockwood, A. M.B.E.

H 39222 Sgt Bell, W.

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The gradual withdrawal of personnel under the present plan for demobilization has prevented me saying goodbye – as I had wished – to the Battalion as a whole – and to all of you who served in North West Europe.

This booklet, prepared at your wish and by your committee, will serve us as a visual memento of the many memories which will out last these pages. Made up in haste, in the last days of the Battalion, I hope that it, and this message, reach you all.

The Battalion has served as a unit during five years and in six countries. In that time the individual efforts of sapper, NCO and officer have combined to create for the Unit an enviable record and a status in the Corps of which you must all be as proud as I am. Supporting many formations, our role has been varied, airfields, mine clearance, roadmaking, bridge-building. We have worked from rear areas to forward lines.

In all places our record stands – no allotted task has failed of successful completion.

My personal thanks to you all for your fine work, and cheerful support during the period of my command. Wherever you go – to new ventures or the joys of home – my best wishes go with each of you. May we meet again. Till then goodbye – good luck – and God Bless.

G.L. MacDonald

Lt Col

signed

Zwolle, Holland

1 July 45

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Over the upcoming weeks, I will republish more extracts from the book.

The book was:

Printed by N.V. Nauta & Co, Zutphen, Holland

The Binding was done by  C. H. F. Wohrmann & Zonen, Zutphen, Holland

 

Bridging the Vedder Canal Nov 1986

CME Newsletter, No. 42, April 1987

As part of a major project to upgrade the Fraser Valley portion of the Trans Canada (Hwy 1) to true freeway standards, a secondary crossing of the Vedder Canal was needed. This service route would eliminate slow-moving farm traffic from Hwy 1 and would permit the closing of some uncontrolled access points. Keith Wilson Road, which bisects CFB Chilliwack, was chosen. It would be extended across the Vedder Canal some 8.5 km west of the Base. Acrow panel bridge, supported on six piers, was selected to span the gap.

Note – Acrow panel is the modern successor to Bailey. For a 6.7% increase in panel weight and up-dated methods for connecting transoms and sway bracing, shear and bending moment capacities are greatly increased. This and other technical aspects of Acrow, as well as engineering lessons learned in the erection of this bridge, will be discussed in a separate article.

The fortunate location of the B.C. Acrow representatives down the hall for our own Colonel Commandant’s Vancouver office served to form the “bridge” between the B.C. Ministry of Transport and Canadian Military Engineers. While approval was being sought from NDHQ for 1 CER participation, civilian contractors emplaced the abutments and the concrete-capped tubular steel piles (concrete filled) to form the piers. MOT built the access route and prepared the approaches.

Shortly after project approval was received, some 80 members of 1 CER, in less than twelve working hours, erected two hundred tonnes of steel over the 600 foot gap. Here is an account of the task as written by WO Scotty Nicholson, 1 Tp WO, who looked after PR and recording the event:

In peacetime we, the Engineers, are rarely given the opportunity to demonstrate our engineering skills and professionalism to the public. 1 CER was fortunate enough to get such an opportunity during the period 25 – 28 Nov 86 by constructing a 600 ft/183 m seven span Acrow bridge over the Vedder Canal. The Acrow is a civilian bridge similar to the Bailey. The Acrow retains many of the basic Bailey principles incorporating some strengthening features of the heavy guider bridge. The Acrow is capable of supporting MLC 60 over a 200 ft/61 m clear span using a normal configuration, Quadruple Double Reinforced (QDR), and is normally constructed by hand.

At 0800 hrs on the 25 Nov 86, MWO Dave Fowler (Bridge Commander) gave the order to prepare the site for construction during which time the roller layout was progressing and small stores were being unloaded.

At 1215, MWO Fowler gave the order, “panels up,” which initiated a beehive of activity. Normal construction continued up to 1630 hrs with the nose touching down on pier #1 at 1500 hrs. Prior to the bridge reaching Pier #2, rumblings could be heard, “it will never line up on the rollers on pier #2”. As the bridge inched forward, all held their breath as the nose touched down exactly as planned, perfectly aligned, a job well done by Sgt Mears and his roller layout crew. And so day one came to a close.

Day 2 construction started at 0800 hrs with MWO Fowler giving the all familiar order “panels up”. Normal construction continued throughout the day and reasonably smoothly. The nose touched down on the piers at the following times:

Pier # 3          0900 hrs

Pier # 4         1040 hrs

Pier # 5         1340 hrs

Pier # 6         1430 hrs

Far landing Rollers                       1517 hrs

Jacked down home side           1601 hrs

Nose dismantled                          1610 hrs

A few days of anxiety did come when the bridge reached Pier # 4 and it started to react like a snake. The panel metal appeared to compress and as the tension/compression released, a wave like action passed throughout its length. This was an unfamiliar occurrence which was later confirmed to be a normal reaction of long bridges as they are being pushed forward. Once the bridge proper reached the far side, the home side was jacked down and the nose removed. Work for day 2 came to a close and all members left with a feeling of a job well done.

During the 27 and 28 Nov, MWO Fowler, with a skeleton crew, jacked the bridge down and cleaned up the site.

The actual construction time was equal to 9.5 hrs to span the canal and have the home side jacked down. A considerable feat considering the length and number of spans.

During the construction, civilian spectators were heard to say: “Unbelievable, why did we not get the Army engineers to put a bridge in years prior?” all comments were of a positive nature, 1 CER earning the respect of the local populace.

Although the Acrow bridge construction occupied elements of the unit for the better part of a week, it was a truly satisfying project. The bridge has opened up a much needed secondary route across the Vedder Canal and will remain in use for years to come. Members of three squadrons, and even RHQ, were heavily involved in all aspects of the construction. It was the type of project that is rarely available and, as the sappers will agree, was very rewarding.

Is this the longest Bailey-type bridge built by Military Engineers in Canada? Vince Clark remembers building 600 feet of Bailey over the Peace in the 1950’s; however Acrow end panels are somewhat wider than Bailey which would give the 1 CER bridge over the Vedder Canal some eight inches more than that built by our predecessors’.

Footnote – this bridge was replaced in 1998, with it’s opening taking place in Dec 98. This time construction was by civilian contract.

Note to cross the Vedder River/Canal, there are only three places this can be done. The two bridges (two lanes each) side by side, on the Trans-Canada Highway. The Keith Wilson bridge and finally the bridge in Vedder Crossing. This third bridge will be replace over the next couple of years.

Bridge co-ordinates – 49°6’10″N   122°4’39″W

Chief Warrant Officer John Mitges, MMM, CD (Ret’d)

The following article is courtesy of the CMEA News Brief, 10 Oct 14..

Chief Warrant Officer John Mitges, MMM, CD (Ret’d) WW II Veteran
Awarded French Legion of Honour

Ken Holmes

The Canadian Military Engineers are pleased to advise that the Government of France has announced the awarding of the Rank of Knight of the National Order of the Legion of Honour to Chief Warrant Officer John Mitges, MMM, CD (Ret’d), a WW II Royal Canadian Engineer veteran and a participant in the Battle of the Liberation of France who also went on to serve a full post-war career. Some background on this honour is found at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legion_of_Honour

Sergeant John Mitges was a 22-year old Reconnaissance Sergeant for his troop that was part of 18 Field Company, Royal Canadian Engineers. He landed with the Nova Scotia Highlanders at Bernieres sur Mer before noon on 6 June. The squadron was with the 9th Brigade that pushed through the beachhead that had been created by the 7th and 8th Brigades. The beachhead was extremely congested at that time and the rally point was Beny-sur-Mer. Once the brigade started pushing out of the beachhead, the tasks for John’s platoon were to destroy obstacles and clear mines along the route of advance. His role as the Recce Sergeant was to move out with the lead troops and send information back to his troop about the engineer tasks they would have to work on.

There was heavy fighting all into that first night when the advance was halted north of Caen. When the advance continued over the next several days Sergeant Mitges continued with his recce tasks in support of the lead elements of the battalion. On 11 June he was wounded in the head, chest and leg and was evacuated to a field hospital on the beach where he was treated for ten days. Recovering, he “hitch-hiked” back to his unit instead of going back through the normal channel as he did not want to get hung up in an infantry unit on the way back.

Sgt Mitges stayed with 18 Field Company as they advanced across the Rhine and all the way up to the Baltic Coast where the unit became primarily involved in mine clearance. The Germans had resorted to laying sea mines in the ground as that was all they had left towards the end of the war. It was during the clearing of one such mine – on the last day of the war – that he was again wounded in the leg after the mine detonated while his team was too close to it. He was evacuated to hospital and later re-joined his unit before it returned to England.

John Mitges returned to Canada in December 1945. He was transferred to the small Permanent Force and posted to the Royal Canadian School of Military Engineering at Chilliwack. In 1947, he was one of three RCE personnel seconded to the United Kingdom where he qualified as a Glider Pilot. With this new qualification under his belt, John was posted to the Canadian Joint Airborne Training Centre at Rivers, MB where he did a considerable amount of glider training and indoctrination flights for parachute training students.

John had a full post-war career with the Royal Canadian Engineers. During the Korean War John was seconded to the British Army and had two trips to Korea to erect Nissan Huts. His career was marked by appointment as Sergeant Major of 1 Airborne Troop RCE and as Squadron Sergeant Major of 4 Field Squadron. He was selected for a two-year attachment with Plant Roads and Airfields at the Royal School of Military Engineering, UK his last appointment was as the senior RCE CWO at Mobile Command Headquarters before taking his release in 1976
John currently lives in South Surrey, BC and is eagerly looking forward to arrangements for the formal presentation of this honour.

Sept 2014

WWII

A Bridge in the Yukon – 1971

A memoir by a Kingstonian, Major-General (ret) Don Gray, RMC’56, Queen’s ’57, over 42 years after the fact.

“There are strange things done in the land of the midnight sun but the strangest I ever did see was a long truss bridge, heading north, yet still very far from the sea…….!”

My apologies to poet Robert Service and Sam McGee from Tennessee.

The Canadian government was committed to the construction of a highway in the Yukon from Dawson City to Inuvik NWT on the Mackenzie River delta, very close to the Arctic Ocean. The highway (later named the Dempster Hwy after a Mounted Policeman) was well under construction and several hundred miles of a gravel road had been completed on both sides of the river to be crossed by this bridge. About 122 miles north of Dawson City (of Gold Rush fame 1898) the proposed highway intersected the Ogilvie River. It was over 360 feet wide at the crossing point.

One of the fascinating points about this bridge site is that it almost straddles the Arctic Circle (Lat. 66° 33¢ 44² N) and it is located at 66° 12¢ 18.33² N with an elevation 638 feet above sea level.

The federal department of public works (DPW) had already designed the bridge and a contract had been awarded to a Vancouver firm to manufacture the bridge components. It would be composed of three identical spans of 120 feet configured as pony trusses. Surprisingly, it was fabricated of high strength steel which was to be galvanized and, when one considers the cold Yukon climate, should keep the rusting of this bridge to an absolute minimum and it should last for at least a hundred years and probably much more.

As I understand it, some questions by politicians in Ottawa, raised the idea that military engineers might be employed to build this structure. To cut to the quick it eventually became a project assigned to 3 Field Squadron (3 Fd Sqn) RMC located in Chilliwack, B.C.

It would be my job as the Commanding Officer 3 Fd Sqn, Canadian Military Engineers to make the plan to accept the bridge, organize the shipment of the components to the bridge site and build it. Easier said than done I later found out. While my unit had a complement of over 325 personnel at the time, the project would only need about 30 personnel at any time. It would be a pretty big collateral duty for the squadron in a remote location with a very long supply tail.

I should interject here that when I was at 1 CEU (Winnipeg), a military technical unit, as Chief Engineer I had actually been to the bridge site, as a consultant to 3 Fd Sqn, and had I traveled with Major Ian Ballantyne (my predecessor as CO 3 Fd Sqn) and Major Gerry Zypchen who was an engineer staff officer at Mobile Command HQ in Montreal. The trip to, and the return from, the site was in itself exciting and turned out to be quite an adventure.

We three engineer majors actually met in Vancouver to fly CP to Whitehorse and on to Dawson where we would meet with the senior DPW engineer working on the Dempster. He drove us up the highway to a flat area where a helicopter could land a take us up to look at the selected crossing. Here is where it gets interesting. The contracted civilian chopper could only carry one passenger at a time and for some forgotten reason I was selected to go in first. The flight over the Ogilvie mountains was worth the price of admission by itself. We were flying very close to the mountainside and I asked the young pilot why we were so close to it? He explained that the chopper really didn’t have enough power to get over the very high crest without using the wind up-draught, caused by the mountain, to literally blow us over the top. Sorry I asked! We were thousands of feet up. When we actually crested the top of the mountain the view was breathtaking. There was Canada’s Yukon spread out in front of me in all of her majesty. I’ll never forget that feeling or that stunning view of Canada.

When we got to the crossing site, I jumped out of the chopper and it took off to get the next passenger. I suddenly realized that all of my Boy Scout training had been forgotten.
Ogilvie River Bridge, Highway 5 (once Hwy 11) Near the Arctic Circle, Yukon 1971
The finished product!
Here I was, all alone, literally hundreds of miles from anywhere, I was not armed, was in summer combat clothing and I had no food. If anything happened to that chopper I’d probably end up as a footnote in some boring report!

When I stood at the crossing there was a steady breeze, but as I nosed about checking for a tree I could climb if a hungry bear saw me, I realized that in the woods the breeze was light and almost still, but the mosquitoes surely weren’t. I was attacked by hundreds of them. Bears be damned I went back out on the beach where the brisk wind kept the mosquitoes at bay. Incidentally the trees were very old and short as we were almost above the tree line, so they offered little protection anyway.

It seemed an eternity before the chopper got back with my two companions, one-by-one. We did our reconnaissance, kicked the sand, made our notes and reversed the process to get out of there. This time I went out first!

While we were in the Yukon doing our reconnaissance there were forest fires all over the Yukon. We had taken little notice of this fact, but when we got back to our DPW vehicle we were advised that the road to Dawson had been closed because of the fire danger and we were unable to get back to the Dawson airport. Since our DPW engineer guide lived in Whitehorse and was heading home we decided to hitch a ride with him and fly south from Whitehorse. It was an 8 hour drive I recall. At one point the Mounties waved us down to advise us of the danger of going on because a shift in the wind might cause the fire to jump over the road and we’d be “cooked” as it were. Well we, three military engineer majors, thought that were we invincible so we pressed on. The term ‘impetuous’ would not be out of place here.

Back to the bridge. I had seen the site. I had seen the plans. The bridge was to be a three span pony truss, each span 120 feet for a total length of 360 feet, that would require two abutments on each side of the river and two piers at the third points in the river. My plan was to assemble one side of the span at the bridge manufacturers plant so that our soldiers could see how it went together. I requested that each span be colour-coded and all of the bolts, nuts, and members be colour-marked to ensure that everything got to site. The closest Canadian Tire or military supply depot was hundreds of miles away and there were no quick remedies for mistakes.

The plan was to have the bridge components shipped to Skagway, in Alaska, and loaded on the White Pass and Yukon (a narrow gauge railway) and transported to Dawson, where it would be shipped up the Dempster Highway, by trucks, and off loaded at the bridge site.

Since Lt. Barr (later Major), who had been working with me, was being posted to the squadron, at the same time I was, and was up-to-speed on the bridge plans, I intended to make him site commander when the time arrived. He was clearly the right choice.

I had the planning pretty well sketched out, I thought that we would deploy our sappers by air, our equipment by road from Chilliwack as soon after 1 May as we could to firstly build our camp, prepare the site and get ready. I figured that we would finish this bridge about Labour Day (1971) or after about 4 months of work. I was shocked when the senior engineer of DPW in Vancouver opined that, based on his experience, it was likely that a bridge of this size, in that location, would be finished in the summer of 1972. Nevertheless I still went ahead with my plan.

The construction method that we used probably would not be acceptable today in light of environmental concerns. We actually built a dyke out into the river so that we could install two cofferdams, for the mid-stream piers and erect the first two spans, from dry land. When that was completed we opened the dykes to accommodate the river flow then put a dyke under the third span so that it could be erected from dry land too. I’m sure we may have temporarily bothered the spawning of some fish species and I, now, regret that possibility. Of course the two abutments were slightly easier to handle from the river banks with no environmental concerns.

Any bridge that I have ever been involved with, whether expedient or permanent, usually has technical problems. In this one, I was astonished to discover that the soil investigation was misleading. It indicated that bedrock was about eight feet below the river bed. In fact it was merely inches below the bottom. The need for piling was therefore obviated so we improvised and used heavy dowels concreted into drilled holes to anchor the piers to bottom of the river working in the cofferdams. Another huge problem was the fact that all of the aggregate, within miles of the site, which was needed for the designed concrete bridge deck was deleterious and could not used. The easy way out of this “pickle” was to order up an expanded-metal-lattice deck. Surprisingly we were able to get this designed, purchased and shipped to the site just as we needed it. A miracle? Perhaps.

I have extracted the bridge portion of my memoir of 3 Fd Sqn because it would have greatly complicated my “real” (perhaps normal is more appropriate) duty commanding this marvellous unit. I only want to add that while the bridge was under construction, I periodically flew north to the site from Vancouver or Calgary (depending where my squadron was deployed) on Fridays and returned on Monday. The squadron was well-trained for this job and once they got going I think I was just a nuisance. But I loved it. Almost every engineer wants to build a permanent bridge.

As it turned out I was posted out of 3 Fd Sqn in August 1971, just as the bridge was finishing, to attend Staff College in Toronto, a one year course, but the “powers that be” actually sent me plane tickets (Toronto to the Dawson return) to attend the ribbon cutting at the bridge site just around Labour Day as I had predicted. At the “Opening Ceremony” I restrained myself from smugly smiling at the DPW Chief Engineer who told me months before that it would take us a year or more to build a bridge of this size in the far north. He was almost right!

I understand that this bridge has been heavily used since 1971. I’ve been retired for over 25 years and I have only met one couple who has crossed this bridge. About 15 years ago my wife and I were on a cruise in the Baltic and we shared a lunch table with an adventurous American couple who loved travelling in northern Canada. I nearly fell off my seat when he told me he had crossed this bridge several times while vacationing.

The finished product!

Ogilvie River Bridge, Highway 5 (once Hwy 11) Near the Arctic Circle, Yukon 1971

This article was re-published with the permission of e-Veritas, the electronic newsletter of RMC Club http://www.rmcclub.ca