TY - JOUR
KW - World War I
KW - Waterloo County
KW - 118th Overseas Battalion
AU - Nikolas Gardner
AB - Canada's 118th Overseas Battalion, raised during World War I, still retains a reputation for disorder and underachievement. The unit's experience, however, actually was similar to other units Canada attempted to raise. The Waterloo area had been a center of much German settlement, so in 1915 local leaders volunteered to raise a regiment there to demonstrate the area's loyalty. As in other units raised after the initial flush of patriotism waned, recruitment lagged. While waiting to begin training, recruits were involved in several incidents of harassment of the locals over their suspect loyalty. The battalion performed poorly in training and a final physical exam before shipping out disqualified such a large proportion of the recruits that on arrival in Britain the unit was broken up and members assigned piecemeal to other units as replacements. [P. Quimby]
BT - Ontario History
C7 - Unknown(0)
ID - 357
IS - 3
LA - English
M1 - Journal Article
M3 - Print(0)
PY - 1997
SN - 00302953
SP - 219
EP - 236
EP - 
T1 - The Great War and Waterloo County: the Travails of the 118th Overseas Battalion
T2 - Ontario History
VL - 89
ER -