The Story of Percy Dwight Wilson

2007-05-10T16:56:00.000-07:00

With the passing of Lloyd Clemett on February 21, 2007, Percy Wilson was one of only two remaining WW1 Veterans of the CEF (Canadian Expeditionary Force) from the Great War. On Wednesday May 9, 2007 Percy joined Lloyd, as he passed away at Sunnybrook Hospital.

Volunteer members of the Canadian Expeditionary Force Study Group, which includes researchers from around the world, teamed together to gather what information was available on the history of Percy Wilson. We have done so to honour his contribution to the CEF and to make this information readily available to others.

Percy's Attestation Papers show that he attested to the 69th Battery of the Canadian Filed Artillery on July 11, 1916. Unlike the other "Centenarian's" we have been reviewing, Percy gave his birth date as February 26, 1900 and his age as 16 years and 4 months. According to his Ontario birth registration and the 1901 Canadian Census, Dwight Percy Wilson was born on 26 February 1901 at Elgin County. His parents were Courtland Wilson and Mary Anne Chute. He reported that at the time he already had 11 months prior militia experience as a Bugler with the 9th Mississauga Horse. Many members of the 9th M.H. went to form the 170th Infantry Battalion CEF, so Percy went on a different path.

Percy Dwight Wilson listed his next of kin as his mother Mary Wilson at 139 Hastings Avenue in Toronto, Ontario. At the time of attestation he recorded his occupation as a student.

Report from Sympatico MSN: (edited)

Wilson passed "peacefully" at Toronto's Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Canada's largest veterans' care facility, where flags were lowered to half-mast in honour of the veteran.

His death leaves John Babcock, who lives in Spokane, Wash., as the only surviving Canadian First World War veteran.

"All these guys who signed up realized there were risks involved, especially by 1916," Wilson's son, Paul, said of the generation of young men who volunteered to serve despite news chronicling horrific battlefield losses.

"I think maybe in 1914, when the war broke out, some of the young boys signing up thought it would be a lark,'' he added. "By 1916, there had been thousands upon thousands of them just killed. They had some horrendous battles."

In 1915, as a young Cadet, Wilson trained as a mounted bugler in the militia. And in July of the following year, at age 15 -- three years shy of the legal minimum -- he enlisted and joined the 69th Artillery Battery in Toronto.

After completing basic training in Camp Niagara and Camp Petawawa, Ont., Dwight ventured overseas as part of the Artillery Battery.

"On the two-week voyage crossing the North Atlantic to England, he entertained the other troops on the R.M.S. Grampian liner with his wonderful singing voice," the veterans' care centre said in a press release.
"He was one of over 600,000 Canadians who fulfilled their sense of duty and volunteered to serve in the Great War."

But upon arrival in England, his superiors realized Wilson was too young, and held him back from the front lines.

Wilson was eventually sent back to Canada and discharged as a minor.
"I don't know if he really lied about his age, or whether someone fudged it," said Paul Wilson. "This is 1916. The best troops in Europe and the Allies had already been cut to pieces. I think they were scrambling."

But war broke out again in 1939, and Wilson, who was working with Bell Telephone, became a Captain in Stratford's 7th Perth Regiment Reserves.
He tried to serve once again, only this time he was too old for active duty.
Wilson worked for Bell Canada from 1919 until his retirement in 1966. He held numerous positions in several Ontario communities, and was promoted to manager of the phone company's Stratford operation.

He also sang in the Bell vocal group, and enjoyed a career in music which included studying at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, where he met his wife -- singer and pianist Eleanor Dean.

He and Eleanor were married in 1927 and stayed together until she died at the age of 94. They had two sons, Dean and Paul.

"In memory of Wilson and all those who served in the Great War, the family has requested that donations be directed to the Veterans' Comfort Fund at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Room KGE39," said the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre.

WWI vet Dwight Wilson dead at 106
By GREGORY BONNELL AND KEITH LESLIE

(CP PHOTO/Frank Gunn)

TORONTO (CP) - Dwight Wilson's dogged determination to join his countrymen in the trenches of the First World War drove him to enlist not once, but twice, despite news reports chronicling the "horrendous" conflict being waged in Europe.

Wilson, who was diverted from the frontlines because he was a minor, died Wednesday. He was 106.

Wilson's death leaves only one known surviving Canadian veteran of the First World War - 106-year-old John Babcock, who lives in Spokane, Wa.
"All these guys who signed up realized there were risks involved, especially by 1916," his son, Paul Wilson, said of the generation of young men who volunteered to serve despite horrific battlefield losses.

Ten per cent of the roughly 600,000 Canadians who enlisted to fight in the First World War died on the battlefields of Europe - 170,000 more were wounded.

The war would ultimately claim 15 million civilian and military lives on both sides of the conflict.

"I think maybe in 1914, when the war broke out, some of the young boys signing up thought it would be a lark," said Wilson. "By 1916, there had been thousands upon thousands of them just killed. They had some horrendous battles."

It was in that climate that a 15-year-old Wilson, who had served as a bugler in the 9th Mississauga Horse militia a year earlier, headed overseas in the fall of 1916 despite his parents' objections.

"There aren't many of them left, are there?" Wilson said in November 2006 when asked how it felt to be one of the few remaining veterans of the First World War.

"I was a kid," Wilson said of his experience. He recalled that his singing went "over big" with his fellow soldiers in England.

Wilson, who sang semi-professionally after the war, charmed reporters who visited him at the veterans' wing of Toronto's Sunnybrook Hospital last November with a surprisingly powerful rendition of "If I Loved You."
"I love to sing and I'll sing anywhere," he said.

Just how a determined, yet underage, Wilson soldier found himself enlisted in active service remains a bit of a mystery.

"I don't know if he really lied about his age, or whether someone fudged it," said Paul Wilson. "This is 1916. The best troops in Europe and the Allies had already been cut to pieces. I think they were scrambling."

Following basic training in Petawawa, Ont., Wilson was shipped to England with the 69th Battery out of Toronto.

"It was a two-week trip across the Atlantic, zig-zagging to avoid the German
submarines," said his son. "He was sea sick most of the way."

It was while awaiting orders to the frontline that Wilson's commanding officer discovered his true age, and put the young soldier to work digging defensive trenches in the south of England.

Wilson, already earning a reputation among his colleagues for his frequent singing while he worked, was sent back to Canada in January 1917 and discharged as a minor.

He managed to re-enlist in the 69th Battery in April. Four months later, Wilson was discharged as a minor yet again while stationed in Petawawa.
"I never got to France, and I was a bit disappointed at the time," Wilson said in a published newspaper article in 2005.

Regardless of never seeing the front, Wilson and the thousands of other underaged Canadians who were held back from battle are to be commended, said historian and author Jack Granatstein.

"To my mind, the fact that they were there as volunteers is sufficient," said Granatstein, who along with Wilson's son was interviewed last year for this article.

"They are representative of their era, and as such they deserve that recognition."

Wilson met his wife, Eleanor Dean, a singer, while he was studying music at the Royal Conservatory after the war, and he often entertained staff and fellow residents at his long-term care home with his rich baritone voice.
Wilson eventually joined Bell Canada because it had a singing group, and he stayed with the phone company for 47 years before retiring in 1966.

Wilson never lost his love for the military, or his desire to fight for his country, and signed up again for military service during the Second World War after he had moved his wife and children to Stratford, Ont.

"He was too old for active duty, but he still rose to the rank of captain" in Stratford's 1st Regiment Reserves, recalled Paul of his father's last attempt to get into the fighting overseas.

Wilson, whose wife died in 1993 just after their 60th wedding anniversary, spent his final years at the veteran's residence at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto.

CEF WW1 Soldier Percy Dwight Wilson

The Story of Percy Dwight Wilson