Benson Simpson Case
Ben was born in Dungannon, Huron County Ontario in 1890. He is one of six children and the son of a country doctor, his father’s family originating from Ireland. Ben is a bright scholar. After growing up in Dungannon, he heads to university in Toronto. It takes him ten years to graduate, as everything has to be paid for. When money runs out, a pattern emerges: study, leave, work, return, study, leave and enlist in the Great War.
When Ben enlists, there is just enough time to get the necessary vaccinations, before he and his Battalion make the two day train journey to Halifax.
Ben leaves for England in April 1915 and after a month of training he arrives in France. Ben joins the 5th Field Ambulance as a stretcher bearer. He is 24 years old. The 5th joins the 4th Canadian Infantry Brigade and they make their way towards Flanders and the Belgian border. Ben’s work is to clamber through deep knee mud bringing wounded soldiers to the Regimental Aid Post. He is in danger of shell fire and gas attack, with rotting corpes all around him. Sometimes it takes two stretcher bearers to bring a soldier back and sometimes it takes six.
In July 1916 Ben leaves the stretcher bearer unit and returns to England. He joins the 43rd Battery Canadian Field Artillery and is thrust into fighting once more, but this time as a gunner and a signaler. In these two roles, Ben works a twelve day cycle close to the front, four days at the guns and eight days signaling.
Signalers work in pairs close to the front line. They provide information on enemy targets using sun and mirrors during the day and lamps at night. Ben works in Morse Code, and as they transmit towards the front of the battlefield, it is easy to attract enemy fire. It is in these two positions, as part of the 43rd, that Ben spends the rest of the war. He fights in the Somme, Vimy Ridge and Passchendaele and by some miracle he survives.
After four gruelling years, the war comes to an end and in 1918, Ben leaves the army. He does not win any medals for bravery, but his role and his endurance make him a hero…Bombadier Benson Simpson Case. He could have risen higher, but he did not hold any military ambition. Far more important to him is the strong bond of friendship he has formed with his comrades, a bond that will continue for the rest of their lives.
Ben finds a job at T. Eaton Assurance as an office manager and stays for 30 years, retiring in 1949 and moving to live full time in the old Ontario farmhouse with its 100 acres in Georgetown, which he and some army buddies had purchased in 1938. It is here that Ben holds reunion parties for his comrades of the 5th Field Ambulance and the 43rd Battery and he gains the love and respect of friends and neighbours. His days filled with research for the Silverwood Women’s Institute and dedicated to work on the boards of the Georgetown Horticultural Society, the Old Stone School Association and the Halton County Museum.
When Ben dies on June 13, 1986 it is a sad day as his life has impacted so many. Ben is buried at Greenwood Cemetery in Georgetown.
Truly a Canadian Hero. His story lives on. *Taken from “Our House and All the People who Called it Home” by Pamela Dickinson
