The sickening wail of a falling bomb filled the air. The noise was becoming far too familiar to residents of Britain in 1917. For young Canadian soldier Jack Sutherland, it was terrifyingly new.
Jack Sutherland was born on Oct. 4, 1885 in Bradford, one of four children who were born to grocer Alexander Sutherland and his wife Elizabeth. Alex, who ‘enjoyed the respect and confidence of the entire community’ imparted in his children a sense of responsibility and duty.
Jack’s first brush with tragedy came in 1889 when brother Willie, four years his elder, drowned in the Holland River. Most children have a sense of invulnerability. Jack would have been disabused of such notions at a very young age. Life was fragile.
Around 1905, Jack, now a young man, said goodbye to his family and joined the westward migration. He landed in Regina where he worked as a general labourer for a time before finding steady employment with the Canadian Pacific Railroad (CPR).
In 1914, Jack was 29 years old. He stood five-feet, 11-inches tall, had dark hair but piercing blue eyes, and was a fit 180 pounds. He was holding down a good job as a line checker with the railroad, ensuring that tracks were not damaged and that switches were working.
That year, the First World War broke out, shattering Jack’s idyll. The CPR was one of Canada’s largest employers and was vital to the economy, so while the line supported the war it didn’t immediately encourage workers to enlist in the rapidly expanding army. Simply put, the railway was too important to the Canadian economy and its war effort.
By late 1915, however, it was clear that the war would drag on much longer than anticipated and that Canada would need to greatly expand its effort. CPR began to encourage its workers to serve, offering guaranteed re-employment upon the end of the conflict.
Jack heard the news of the devastating casualties being suffered in the trenches, he knew the odds of returning unscathed, he knew well the fragility of life, but he was not a man to shrink from a difficult task. On April 10, 1916, he enlisted in the 200th (Winnipeg) Battalion.
In early May 1917, the battalion boarded ship for Britain. On May 14th, the men landed at Liverpool. Less than two weeks later, Jack would be dead.
At 2 p.m. on May 25, Germany launched Operation Turk's Cross (Unternehmen Türkenkreuz). Eighteen Gotha bombers took off from airfields in occupied Belgium and headed across the English Channel for Britain. Just over two hours later, they made landfall.
The rumble of approaching bombers caused soldiers at the Canadian army camp at Shorncliff to pause their activities. Jack didn’t want to look up, but he couldn’t help himself. A barrage of planes thundered overhead. When the first whining whizz came down, Jack and other soldiers were initially frozen in place. Then they snapped back to reality and ran. Soon, the camp erupted with explosions.
When the Gothas departed they left destruction in their wake. Smoke and dust were everywhere. Fires had broken out. Soldiers wandered around the rubble looking bewildered. There were ghastly sights everywhere as 93 soldiers were wounded, some terribly so, and 17 others dead. Jack was among the deceased.
Jack hadn’t stepped foot in France, never saw the muddy trenches, but he nonetheless died in service to his nation.
