© 2020, Christian Cassidy
This is one in a series of posts commemorating the life of some of the Manitobans who died in World War I. For more about this project and links to other posts, follow this link.
Signature: Attestation Papers (Library and Archives Canada)
Ronald Alexander Tait was born in Baie St. Paul in the RM of St. Francois Xavier in December 1898*. He spent his teenage years at 614 Victor Street in Winnipeg, now demolished, with his parents, Alexander and Flora, brothers Victor, Leslie and Campbell, and sister, Edna.
(* On his attestation papers, Tait gives 1899 as his birth year,
though according to Manitoba Vital Statistics' database and a medical
form in his military file his birth year was 1898. This is interesting
as recruits, particularly underage ones, usually backdated their
year of birth to make them older than they were. For the purposes if
this article I am using 1898 as his year of birth.)
Tait's roots in Manitoba went far back.
His grandfather on his mother's side was John Taylor, an early Metis farmer and MLA after whom John Taylor Collegiate is named. His father's father was Hon. William Tait, an early farmer and legislator from the Headingley district. Interestingly, the two squared off in the 1874 provincial election with Taylor beating Tait by five votes.
Tait's father was an officer with Dominion Immigration Department and older brother a customs inspector. Ronald left school at age 16 to work as a freight clerk, though his place of employment is unknown.
Troops of the 184th Battalion outside the then Olympia Hotel in 1915
(Archives of Manitoba, N22569)
Tait enlisted with the 184th Battalion at Winnipeg in March 1916 at the age of 17. He was sent to Camp Hughes for basic training and then to the Olympia, now Marlborough Hotel, in Winnipeg to await deployment. The luxury hotel had gone bust in 1913 and was leased by the War Department as the 184th's headquarters.
Tait arrived in England on November 13, 1916. From there, he was transferred to the 27th Battalion and sent to the front lines in France on February 15, 1917.
The 27th fought at the Battle for Hill 70 near Lens, France which lasted from August 15 to 25, 1917. It was a battle that some consider even more important to the outcome of the war than Vimy Ridge, but history has largely forgotten it. Canadian forces suffered 9,198 casualties over that ten-day period and Ronald Tait was one of them.
22 General Hospital ward in 1918. (Archives of Harvard Medical School)
Tait's military file indicates that on August 24, 1917, he arrived at No. 53 Casualty Clearance Station near Lilliers, France "dangerously wounded". (The incident likely took place an agonizing three days earlier.) He suffered gunshot wounds to his left arm, head, chest and foot and had a skull fracture and a collapsed lung. His mangled left forearm had to be amputated.
From the battlefield, Tait was sent to 22 General Hospital in Camiers, France where he spent another another week in serious condition. He then went to the 5th Southern General Hospital in Portsmouth, England where he spent months recovering.
In Tait's "Medical Report on an Invalid" form dated April 1918, while still at Portsmouth, a physician described him in "fair condition" and that aside from shortness of breath after exertion due to his chest injuries, his "empyema healed and all wounds healed".
Tait was invalided back to Canada, leaving Liverpool on June 6, 1918.
Tait's next stop was the North Toronto Military Orthopedic Hospital on Davisville Avenue where he continued his recovery and eventually get fitted with a prosthetic forearm.
At the time, Toronto was in the grip of the world-wide influenza pandemic. Things were so bad that on October 19, 1918, the city ordered closed all theatres, pool halls and other public gathering places.
It was too late for Tait and some other patients at the military hospital. They had already contracted the virus.
Tait's medical file entry for October 23, 1918 starts off describing him as "very weak" with "respiration very shallow", then "very restless and talking a great deal - delirious". The last entry is "Very cyanosed. Pulse weak. Died." The official cause of death was pneumonia.
Ronald Alexander Tait was 19 years old.
By the time of his death, the Taits had relocated to 634 Toronto Street. Their son's body was returned to Winnipeg and he is buried in the Military Section of Brookside Cemetery.
September 18, 1918, Winnipeg Tribune
Victor Tait, Ronald's older brother born in 1897, also enlisted with the 184th. He was wounded twice.
In August 1917 he received gunshot wounds to the thigh and hand. After recovering in England, he returned to battle and was in September 1918 suffered gunshot wounds to the right leg and buttock.
After recovering in hospital, Victor was discharged and sent back to Canada in January 1918. He lived a long life, dying in Winnipeg in June 1981 at the age of 84.
Unfortunately, Ronald wasn't the only Tait to die young.
Flora Tait died in 1921 at the age of 55. A younger brother, Campbell, died at the Ninette Sanatorium of tuberculosis in 1937 at the age of 28.
Will of Ronald Alexander Tait (Military File, Library and Archives Canada)
Related:
Ronald Alexander Tait Military File Library and Archives Canada
Canadian Virtual War Memorial entry Veterans Affairs Canada
The Hill 70 Project
Neglected Victory: The Canadian Corps at Hill 70 M. Walthert
More images of No. 22 General Hospital Archives of Harvard Medical School
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