Soldier's Profile : Hugh Baker Carter (1889-1922)

6th Brigade Canadian Machine Gun Company
2nd Battalion Canadian Machine Gun Corps
Soldiers' Profiles

Lt. Hugh Baker Carter (1889-1922)

Hugh Baker Carter was born on 16 March 1889 at Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. He was the son of William Jesse Carter (1855-1930), a building contractor for the rapidly expanding railways, and his wife Cathrine (Kate) Stewart née Cameron (1856-1901). The family moved from Prince Albert to Calgary, Alberta when Hugh was very young. Then, at about the age when he was due to start school, his father accepted an attractive job in Montreal, Quebec, which was where Hugh did most of his schooling. However, in 1901, Hugh's mother died - she was only 45 - and his father decided to go west again. In 1903 they settled in Edmonton, Alberta, where Hugh completed school. Hugh had three brothers who survived to adulthood, Donald James (1881-1951), Robert "Bob" Stewart (1883-1960) and Frederick Gardiner (1887-1972), and three others who died young.

Hugh enlisted in the 31st Battalion at Calgary, Alberta on 17 November 1914, at which time he was working in the retail lumber trade, and had served in the 103rd C.R. for six months. He showed his next-of-kin as his father, then living at 395, 3rd Street, Edmonton, Alberta.

His elder brother Bob didn't follow suit until a year later. According to Hugh Munro Carter (Bob's son, who was named after his uncle), "Their father told my father 'It's about time!' My grandfather's remark would not have been at all unusual in those days in the Canadian west. Although there had been some immigration from European countries, it was still predominantly British ... my grandfather still referred to 'the old country', and some who had been born in Canada used the expression 'back home', meaning Britain. Canada was not fully self-governing at the time."

Over the winter months, Hugh underwent training in preparation for his being shipped overseas. By the 18 or 19 March 1915, when he sent a postcard (below) to his stepmother, he had been attached to the Machine Gun Section.

Bob, Hugh and Donald Carter
probably during Winter 1914/15 in Edmonton, Alberta

	He is shown marching at fourth from left. The reverse of the card (below left) reads: "Still in Calgary, may go any time & may never go. This a snap of the new section I am in about 30 of us in all. My address now is Machine Gun Section, Headquarters Staff, 31st Batt, C.O.E.F. Will write soon." The first three rows of marchers were obviously missed by the photographer. Another postcard photo, probably taken at around the same time, and possibly even on the same day, but not sent, shows Hugh (below, seated second from left) and others training at the rifle range.
31st Battalion Machine Gun Section training, Calgary, c. Mar 1915 - Reverse shown below	Members of the 31st Battalion training at a rifle tange, probably also c. Mar 1915, and near Calgary

Although Hugh Carter's service records have not yet been examined, he would have sailed overseas with the remainder of the 31st Battalion (and the Second Canadian Division) within days of sending the postcard. According to Reginald Roy in his edited diaries of another 31st Battalion soldier, Donald Fraser (The Journal of Private Fraser : Canadian Expeditionary Force 1914-1918, publ. 1998, CEF Books):

"The 31st Battalion, fully equipped and eager for battle, left Calgary in mid-May, 1915. Within a week the men were packed on board a troopship at Quebec en route for England. By the end of the month, after a long and unpleasant crossing, the unit arrived at Dibgate Camp in Kent, only a few miles from Shorncliffe. Five days later, Lt.-Col A.H. Bell, commanding the battalion, prepared his unit for inspection by Maj.-Gen. S.B. Steele, recently appointed General Officer Commanding of the 2nd Canadian Division. With that over, the 31st began four months of hard training ..."

According to H.C. Singer, History of the Thirty-First Battalion, C.E.F., Calgary, n.p., 1938, p. 22, (in Roy, R., ibid) this training included:

"Company and battalion drill and manoeuvres, trench digging, and similar work occupies most of the time. Course of special instruction in bayonet fighting, grenade throwing, machine-gunnery, musketry, signalling and map reading were also inaugurated ..."

The 31st Battalion embarked for France on 18 September 1915, and Hugh Carter would probably have been with them. The 6th Canadian Infantry Brigade - comprising the 31st (Calgary), the 27th and 28th (both from Winnipeg), and the 29th (Vancouver) Battalions - had spells in and out of the trenches near Kemmel, south of Ypres, until March 1916. He probably also fought with the 31st at the Battles of St. Eloi in April, and Fleurs-Courcelette (at the Somme) in September.

By August 1916, when the photo at right was taken, he had been promoted to the rank of sergeant and was back in England. The picture shows Hugh and several other NCOs being trained in the use of the newly introduced Vickers machine-gun. Hugh has written on the reverse:

"Hythe Ranges. Aug/16. This was taken when down on practice work on Vickers Gun last week. Most of our guns had been changed from Colt to Vickers now at the front. They are a far better gun. H."

Sgt. Hugh Carter and fellow NCOs training with the
Vickers machine-gun, August 1916, Hythe Ranges, Kent

The Hythe Ranges near Folkestone were used by soldiers of the 2nd Canadian Division based at Shorncliffe, near Folkestone in Kent, although the CMG Corps Training Depot and HQ was based some distance to the east at Seaford. The Machine-Gun Companies had already been issued with Vickers in the field in early July, and had spent a week on familiarisation before returning to the forward trenches at "The Bluff", east of Mont-St. Eloi.

Hugh Carter received a commission and was posted to the 6th Brigade Canadian Machine Gun Company in the spring of 1917. The war diary for that unit states that Lt. Hugh Baker Carter reported for duty to the Company Headquarters at Mont-St. Eloi from G.H.Q. Cadet School on 13 April 1917. On 19 April, No. 2 Section under Lts. Dickie and Baker relieved No. 1 Section on outpost duty. On 3 May, during an attack made by the company, Lts. Carter and Wallbridge had four guns in reserve at Vancouver Road, but Lt Carter was later called in to support the attack: "Lts Carter and Wallbridge took up two fresh gun crews owing to Casualties and damages and rearranged section. Lt Carter did exceptionally fine work."

The ruined church of Ablain-St. Nazaire,
in the Souchez Sector at the northern end of Vimy Ridge

Amongst Hugh's effects, now in the possession of his nephew, and namesake, Hugh Munro Carter, is an unused post card (at left) showing the ruined church of Notre Dame-de-Lorette at Ablain-St. Nazaire, at the northern end of Vimy Ridge. The tiny village of Ablain-St. Nazaire lay on the route that the soldiers would have taken to go into the trenches of what was then known as the Souchez Sector, and the troops of the 6th Bde. C.M.G. Company would have seen a great deal of this local landmark. The village was close to the front for most of the war. In 1915, it had seen some terrible fighting, and many French and German troops were killed there. It was then that most of the houses were completely demolished by shelling, and much of the church was also destroyed. By the time the soldiers of the 6th Canadian Infantry Brigade (which included the 31st Battalion and the 6th Bde CMG Coy.) arrived in the Souchez sector in mid-October 1916, there was not much left to show it had once been a village, apart from the ruined church and some piles of rubble.

Private Fraser described the church on his arrival in the area in the autumn of 1916 (Roy, R., ibid):

"... [Monday, October 15, 1916] The countryside from Bouvigny to Arras, embracing Notre Dame de Lorette and Vimy Ridge is somewhat pretty. Working our way up a fairly steep hill and round by a tower, the twin villages of Grand Servins and Petit Servins come into view on our right. Presently we circle through Gouy Servins and proceed down a fairly long pleasant stretch of road to Ablain St. Nazaire lying at the entrance of a valley between the ridges of Lorette and Vimy. On leaving Ablain we march straight down the road for several hundred yards, then sharply to the left for another few hundred yards and then a right angled turn takes us to an outstanding landmark - the Church of Ablain St. Nazaire. Around here are the scattered ruins of quite a number of houses while the church itself is a mere shell. Rounding the church we have a fairly steep climp up the Lorette Spur and well up the slope of the ridge enter a communication trench known as Spur Alley ..."

On 22 July 1917, Lieut. H.B. Carter was admitted to the Field Ambulance, after having been gassed. He was invalided to England, where he married one of the nurses looking after him, Gladys, and returned to Canada at the end of the war. His lungs had been badly damaged and, on the advice of a doctor, they moved to Phoenix, Arizona. He couldn't stand the intense heat there, however, and shortly after moved to California, where he died in 1922. He is buried in Monrovia. His widow returned to England and died in 1962 at Stratford-upon-Avon.

Lt. Hugh Carter (Front row, 2nd from right, below) in England,

probably in 1917 during his recovery from being gassed