The Battle Of Chateauguay, 200 Years Later

The Honour Guard

It seems that every time I make the effort to spit shine my boots  or press razor-sharp creases into my uniform in advance of a 3BAM event, it rains throughout that event, and my efforts  essentially are for naught. This October 26th, when 3BAM accompanied by the 2nd Field Regt's RSM, CWO Joao Barros helped the armed forces, re-enactment groups and various government officials, VIP guests and local citizens commemorate the Battle Of Chateauguay, which took place exactly 200 years today.

Depiction of the battle.

Every school child in Quebec was taught about this when I was a kid, I think in 5th Grade. Unfortunately, the government-sanctioned version I was taught in the early 70's was pretty much what Naploeon would have called "a set of lies, agreed upon."

In this version, the gallant Lieutenant-Colonel de Salaberry with a force of only 300 men sent an an American army of over 7000 running for their mothers by shooting at them from behind rocks and running around in the woods making native war-cries that frightened the inexperienced American troops as they blundered about in the woods, lost and confused, much like the British regulars had at Monongahela (Fort Duquesne if you are French or a Canadien) 58 years earlier.

Canada's First Nations were represented at the ceremony.

There's probably a little bit about this that is true; de Salaberry is credited by many sources as having used deceptions, and he did have 180 fierce Mohawk warriors in his force, but his total force numbered around 1,600, not 300 and the American force under General Wade Hampton numbered more like 2,600 troops, not 7,000. Even today, Oct 26th, the Montreal Gazette continues to report the myth, rather than the facts, claiming de Salaberry had 300 men versus 3000. When the legend becomes fact, you print the legend, you print the legend, right?

Neither did the Americans scurry home in panic as I was taught.  They retired the next day in good order, and without pursuit,  reporting a total of 23 killed, 33 wounded and 29 missing. Canadian losses were 2 killed, 16 wounded and 4 missing. The Battle of Chateauguay when you boil it down, was more of a skirmish than a pitched battle.

Reenactors depicting de Salaberry's Voltigeurs. .

The feat of arms remains impressive in the sense that de Salaberry was nonetheless badly outnumbered and could have been defeated had he not commanded his little force with far more skill his opposing number.  General Hampton convinced as he probably was that de Salaberry disposed a somewhat larger force than he actually did, and convinced that he could not possibly carry the position by renewing the attack the next day, decided instead to withdraw back to Four Corners, NY.

Even a defeat however, would probably not have resulted in the capture of Montreal by the Americans, as Hampton had received an order from the Secretary of War on the eve of the battle, ordering him to put his force into winter quarters on the Saint-Lawrence. Battle or no, there would be no attempt to capture Montreal for the rest of the year. Hampton only committed to battle because prior to receiving this order, he'd  committed a brigade of 1000 men to attempt a flanking movement against de Salaberry's position and to have withdrawn on the 25th would have left them exposed and without support.

American re-enactor

De Salaberry of course knew none of this, and the American mismanagement of the entire campaign does not in any way detract from his reputation or from the the bravery and dedication of his outnumbered command.  He disposed and commanded his forces with skill and guile and won the day. If he is not quite David defeating Goliath, he is still a national hero and rightly so. Vive la Canadienne!

As much as I complain about the rain taking the crease out of my trousers and the shine out of my boots, everyone I was wearing an old Cold War era Canadian winter parka over my WWII era DESERT uniform, as were most 3BAM members present, if our dress was anachronistic in the extreme we were probably also among the most comfortably attired of the uniformed participants in this event. The poor blighters in the honour guard were were stuck standing in the rain in their service dress uniforms without overcoats the whole time.


Unlike our last mission, things went smoothly. We were not beset by mishaps, breakdowns or dud rounds. We were even provided with a collapsible white tent to place over the gun, looking for all the world like a chuppah, as if we were about to conduct a Jewish wedding ceremony rather than a gun salute. When finally the time came to fire, we fired our two shots without SNAFU, somewhat shocking some of the onlookers who because of perhaps inadequate planning on the part of the organizers, were standing a bit closer than we would ordinarily like them to be.

The detachment fires the gun from under the "chuppah" while RSM Barros looks on diligently.

The detachment was commanded by WO (ret) Michel Lepage, and included Lcol (ret) Jaques Borne, Lcol (ret) Yvon Bégin looking after security, MWO (ret) Tom Savoie, WO (ret) Gilles Pelletier, Mbdr (ret) Denis Dumas, Ocdt Robert Ouellette, and making her first uniformed appearance, our newest gunner, Gnr Nathalie Millette. As previously mentioned, we had the honour to be accompanied by RSM Barros of the 2nd Field Regiment and in case you haven't figured it out, I was there in my usual capacity of photographer.

Voltigeur 2Lt watches the rehearsals

Given the number of military participants involved in this event, it's hard to imagine why this mission wasn't tasked out to the regiment, but it was an honour and a pleasure for 3BAM to fire the salute.  This is what 3BAM is all about, and of course, we always attract attention and questions at events like this, which I always view as central to our objective of teaching the history and tradition of the Royal Canadian Artillery. As always, I relish in explaining how artillery works and I try to pretend that I'm sort of like the Carl Sagan of artillery, explaining our methods to non-gunners the way Sagan used to explain science and the scientific method to non-scientists, but without the "BILLIONS."
A particularly fun moment came when two young members of the R22R came up to me as I was waling around, camera slung around my neck and asked me politely but with keen interest, to what regiment we belonged.

"We don't belong to any regiment," I explained. "We're a bunch of old soldiers who who had such a hard time dealing with civilian life that now we dress up in WWII uniforms  and do this SH_T for free. We're mostly old gunners, but hell, we even have a couple of ex-Van Doos within our ranks. We take ANYBODY"

I didn't really use exactly those words, being a bit more diplomatic, but the gist was pretty much the same. 3BAM stands out among the crowd and these guys were curious and full of questions, and I was glad to answer them. Now to figure out ways to get more people to ask us more questions because WE NEED RECRUITS! 


Ubique!


Gary Menten
Photographer-correspondent,
Blogmeister,
Sgt, (ret), etc, etc.

Dimanche Noir Pour La 3BAM

Voici un résumé de cette journée que je ne suis pas près d'oublier!!!!!!

L'Adj Pelletier explique qui a preparé la munition.

Arrivée à la caserne, problème de transport.  Nous devions prendre les deux obusiers de 25 lb pour saluer le navire coréen Dae Jo Yeong entrant dans le port de Montréal. Je ne voulais pas prendre de chance, si il y-aurait un problème avec un obusier on transfère la munition a l'autre.  Mais on a dû se contenter du pick-up du bon Lcol Borne car nos deux FATs n'ont pas démarré. 

En chemin avec notre seul obusier, après un arrêt brusque l'extincteur de 5 lb se vide dans la caisse du pickup, tout, mais tout est blanc neige.  On prend place près de la vieille Horloge pas de problème. Le bateau tire ses 11 coups:  à nous de jouer.  Pas de problème jusqu'au 8e coup. Nous avons subits un raté, et par malheur toute la Marine est là avec commodore  en tête. La procédure de sécurité est enclenchée, 30 minutes plus tard on découvre que le raté a été causé par l'absence de poudre.  Celui qui avait assemblé les douze douilles avait oublié de mettre de la poudre dans celle-là. 

Leçon tirée de cet évènement: À partir de maintenant, celui qui remplira les douilles devra être
À part cela tout a bien fonctionné.

PS: J'oubliais celui qui a rempli ces douilles c'était moi!
accompagné par un autre membre pour vérification.


Adjuc (ret) Gilles Aubé



Black Sunday for 3BAM
What follows is a recap of our mission and I am certain never to forget it! No sooner had we arrived at the armoury then we found we had a problem with our transportation. We had planned to take both 25-pdr howitzers to salute the Korean destroyer Dae Jo Yeong that was visiting the port of Montreal that day. I wanted to take no chances whatsoever; if we had a problem with one gun, we could transfer the unfired ammo to the other one. Unfortunately, as neither FAT wanted to start up we had to content ourselves with using Lcol Borne’s pick-up as a gun tractor, meaning we could take only one gun. En route with our lone gun, the 5lb fire extinguisher in back of the truck went off as a result of the truck braking too suddenly, leaving a snowy white coating of dry chemical powder over EVERYTHING.

Arriving at the port, we took up our place near the old clock tower, thinking our problems were finally over. The ship duly arrived and fired its allotted 11 shots and it was our turn to reply. Again, no problems until the 8th shot was loaded and the firing lever pulled. We had a misfire right in front of the navy boys with Commodore Craig at the head of the delegation. We had no choice but to enact misfire drill and 30 minutes later, upon examination of the misfired cartridge, that the cause of the misfire was a complete absence of gunpowder in the casing. The person who prepared the 12 cartridges obviously forgot to load the powder into that one.

The lesson drawn from this event: from this moment on, the person preparing the ammo will always be watched over by another member when preparing the ammo.

Aside from these little problems, everything was fine.

P.S. I forgot to mention that I am the one who prepared the ammo.



CWO (ret) Gilles Aubé

Ships Ahoy!

ROKS  Dae Jo Yeong

I have to confess that I've always had a great deal of respect for those in peril on the sea. In my youth, enamored of tales of submarine warfare in WWII, I had mostly wanted to serve in the navy rather than the army. I obviously didn't and served in the finest arm of service in the army instead, but I still carry great respect for seafarers and consider it an honour that 3BAM had the opportunity to engage in an age old naval tradition of firing a salute when foreign warships, in this case the Korean destroyer ROKS  Dae Jo Yeong and the combat support ship ROKS Hwa Cheon entered the Port Of Montreal this October 13th.  Maybe we should have looked at the date a little more closely.

The number 13 is considered unlucky in western culture. I don't know why, but it is and if I weren't a skeptic, disbelieving in all things supernatural or that can't be explained by science, or at the very least by careful examination, I'd be sorely tempted to believe there was something to this or that we were cursed. From the beginning, nothing went according to plan this day, including my participation in the event which was only made possible by the cancellation of a boudoir / pin-up shoot which was supposed to have taken place at 11.000 AM. Good for 3BAM, bad for me.

Our gun tractor.

But this isn't about me; it's about the mission. The mission however, just didn't go according to plan. We had planned to have two guns for the salute. We actually had enough personnel present to man two guns, but as luck would have it, both FAT's had mechanical problems that day and we were forced to use only one gun and tow it behind Colonel Borne's red pickup truck. In retrospect, it was a good thing that we had decided to have it present to serve as a support vehicle. If not...we'd have had major problems.

Cmdre David Craig, RCN (right) and Lcdr Geoff Hamilton, RCN (left)

On the way to the Old Port, one of the two fire extinguishers in the truck back of the vehicle somehow "went off," making what looked like smoke and prompting those of us in the other vehicles to think the brake on the 25pdr had not been properly released or had somehow become engaged, causing it to overheat and smoke. That wasn't the case, but all of our stores were now covered in fine white dry chemicals. The gun too, come to think of it. At this point in the game, one might be tempted to think that we'd had our quota of screw-ups for the day, but as I will shortly explain, the best was still to come. Needless to also say, as soon as we got to the Old Port, I realized that the sun would be in entirely the wrong place for good photos of the ship, creating severe contrasts and creating yucky hard shadows on everything. But as I've learned...this is pretty much par for the course in 3BAM and hardly worth commenting on.

Capt Richard Ayoub "hoists" our "colours" so to speak. 

This being a naval event, steeped in naval tradition, there was of course a naval delegation present, headed by Commodore David Craig, RCN. Also present, Lcdr Geoff Hamilton, CO of HMCS Donnacona, our local naval reserve unit, currently located just a few blocks from where I work in St-Henri. It was from Commander Hamilton that I finally obtained the names of the ships that were coming into port. Tall and very athletic looking with a commanding presence, he reminded me somewhat of Colonel David Patterson, late of our own regiment, the 2nd Field Artillery.

Crew members of the Dae Jo Yeong rendering a salute from the stern as she passes by us.

There was time to rehearse a few times, chat with the naval delegation and the forces photographer, go over the routine, safety procedures and make sure everyone had earplugs, and we were joined by a small Korean diplomatic delegation, and frankly, I thought nothing else could possibly go wrong. The lead ship, the Dae Jo Yeong arrived on time, it's officers and crew lined up on deck in their blue uniforms and it fired the planned 11 shots from some small unseen saluting gun forward of the ship's 5" gun, and 3BAM got off 7 rounds in return before the SH_T hit the fan and we had a bloody MISFIRE! Short of the gun exploding and wiping out the detachment, there wasn't a whole lot that could have gone more wrong.

The last shot before we misfired.

The combat support ship ROKS Hwa Cheon

Cmdre Craig thanks Quebec's only "freelance" gun battery.

The misfire drill is very clear and so the last four rounds went unfired as the ship sailed right past us. There wasn't much to do but stand there and salute in silence. Had we ben able to bring along two guns, there would have been no problem as the other gun could have fired the remaining rounds; We had prepared a spare and could still have fired 11 shots. But it wasn't so.

My mind raced back to an incident in 1986 where a salute had been fired at Quebec city by 6RAC for a visiting Japanese vessel bearing a Japanese royal family member and in which the officer in charge (not to mention his TSM) had miscounted the number shots fired and fired only 18 or 19 of the requisite 21. A formal diplomatic protest had been filed in this incident, and the officer in charge, a 6RAC lieutenant ended up with rather a long spell as duty officer at Camp Farnham that summer.

Sunray douses the dud before examining the charge.

I digress. Misfires are a part of life in the artillery, especially when your guns are 70 years old and you load your own ammo. And therein lies the simple truth of the matter. For when the mandated thirty minutes were up and we unloaded the unfired cartridge from the breech, we could clearly see the primer had been fairly struck. The round was doused in a bucket of water, thoroughly soaked as per our procedures, and though found to have more than sufficient wadding, properly tamped down, there was not an ounce of powder behind that wadding. We had built, loaded and attempted to fire a dud round. Worse still, the culprit in this case, was our Sunray, CWO (ret) Aubé who had prepared all the ammo by himself. To his credit, he made no effort to mitigate it or blame it on circumstance, though I have never seen him so down as after he discovered the cause of the problem. Though one might be tempted to say we were cursed that day, that nothing went right because it was the 13th, the truth is that human frailty, not curses or demons or unlucky numbers were to blame for this mess.  Move on and learn from your mistakes.

The navy of course, was still very appreciative and Commodore Craig came over and said a few kind words of thanks. We had done our best for them when no-one in the regulars or the reserves had been available or had the budget or whatever to come out this beautiful autumn day to come keep up this important tradition. But maintaining tradition is what 3BAM is all about. We'll do better next time.

Ubique!

Gary Menten
Photographer-Correspondent,
Sgt (ret)
Blogmaster-general, etc, etc