THE CANADIAN RIOT AT RHYL

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 196, 14 May 1919, Page 7

THE CANADIAN RIOT AT RHYL

« A FULL STORY CASUALTIES AND DAMAGE Rhyl, March 7. The serious rjot whioh began iu the Canadian Camp at Kinrael Park on Tuesday night, and lasted through the, greater part of Wednesday, hod fortunately not all the aggravated characteristics which the first published accounts gave to it, and, happily too, the loss of life was not as great as yesterday's report made it appear. The number of men killed is five, and the nu'ni'ber of tho injured .ie 23, including two subalterns. The. circumstantial story of a major who has gained the V.C. being trampled to death 16 also without foundation in fact. Tho major is alive and unhurt. jjvhen. the additions made l>y rumour have been doduoted the grave nature of the riots is still very evident, and in particular it seems beyond doubt that its ringleaders were men with Bolshevist tendencies. These Bolshevists are not true' Canadians, but men of Russian Wood. The Men's Grievances. The best way to dispel any untruo ideas of the riot, and, at the same time, to convey a trustworthy account of what happened will he to give the event in ■narrative form, with a preliminary of the grievances which the men in the camp havo felt. They have been annoyed at the delay in jetting homo. The sailing of several boats to Canada has been can. celled. It is stated on good authority that on five or six occasions boats.have been taken off the sailing list, and, consequently, drafts that were duo to leave '.have been detained in the camp. Another cause of complaint, the substance of which it is not easy to ascertain, is that Bomo conaeribed men have been given precedence in demobilisation over volunteers of 1914. It. has been the definite intention at Kinmel Park to release first the men who had first joined the Army, but in France demobilisation is being carried out by units, and possibly the occasion of the mon's complaint may have arisen nt a distance, and not on the spot. At any rate, it has been one of the causes i>f the unrest. That the commandor of the camp, Colonel Colquhoun, was aware of the.state of feeling is indicated by the fact that Colonel Thnckrey had been sent to the Canadian Headquarters in London to represent how matters stood, and to bring'back word what definite arrangements for transport were being made. There are over 17,000 men in the camp, and fully tjiree-wiatrere of them are ready with all their documents complete to leave for home. It is a mixed camp, comprising men from the fighting forces, the- Railway Corps, the Labour Corps, and the Forestry Corps, and there is authority for the statement that tho trouble began, and was mainly continued by the men in the. auxiliary branches of the .force, and by.a comparatively' small section of them. The opinions of two officers of high standing in.the camp, which were given independently, agreed in putting the numbers of the rioters at" about 600. The riot began in district, No. 7. It needs to be explained that the camp is manned out in winga and districts, and the districts correspond with the'military districts in Canada. The men housed in district No. 7 at Kinmel belong, for example, to military district No. 7 in the Dominion, and so it go?s, right through to district No. 20. Sacking the Canteens. Tho first disturbance occurred about 9 o'clock on Tuesday night in the No. 7 canteen, which wns looted. It spread from canteen to canteen, the rioters sacking one after another of tho Navy and Army Canteen's Board's premises', and drinking tho boar and appropriating the tobacco and cigarettes. It is not possible to give a consecutive account of the occurrences of the night and the next morning, and they may be mentioned here in the wrong order, but'tho state of affaire by the middle of Wednesday afternoon seems \ to have been that in nearly all- parts of the .camp tho cantoens and the officers' and sergeants' messes had been looted, The quartermaster's stores,had been broken open, a collection of'shop's known as Tin Town, on the confines of tho camp, had been wrecked, and throe gangs of rioters of about 200 strong, were roving about doing further mischief.. A nnmbcr of girls employed at the canteen were in tho camp. During tlie night most of them were in the hostel. Some men appear to-have entered a room where two girls were sleoping, and to have taken away some overalls, but none of tho girls was molested. The manageress responsible for the girls declares that not tho slightest attempt was made, to' interfere with any of them. A large Suantity of stores was carried away or irown about in the rioting, and many thousands of pounds' worth of 'beer and tobacco was stolen. But perhaps n larger tjuantity of beeT was thrown away by order of the Commandant when tho seriousness of the disturbance was realised. He gave instructions (lint tho camp was to be'made absolutely dry, and so far as was then possible the ordor was'carried out. There is a- story whioh, however, lacks corroboration, that a brewer's dray which arrived in the camii on Wednesday was looted. If that bo true, it may account for the horrible turn of events in the course of that afternoon,/ All this time tho officers of the canip were tryincr to pacify the unruly elements. Colonel Colquhbuu himself wns going about among the men throughout Tuesday night and all the next morning, endeavouring to allay the excitement and to stop the disorder by the force of his personal; influence and by appeals to their own sense of disoipline. Whole sections 1 of the camp wero steadfast, but the unruly element from a number of districts aoted independently, spreading the disturbance over a wide area. Colonel Colqnhonn seems to have resolved that he would not resort to force to quell the outbreak unless absolutely obliged to do so as a last resource, and one of the earliest precautions he had taken was the removal of all tho ammunition to headquarters. It should be noted that the damage to property is confined to the canteen, the shops, and to one of the Y.M.C.A. huts. Other Iniildroge have suffered from stray missiles, but they were not the object of an organised attack. Although during Tuesday night 17 men wero injured, thoir injuries wero slight. ' Russian With Red Flag. The new phase began in the middle of , Wednesday afternoon. By then two or three of tho orderly districts in this camp had resolved that they would not allow the rioters to overrun their areas. Districts Nos. 15, 19, and 20 came to this determination. A body of riotere ad-' vanced upon district No. 20 about 3 o'clock. It was noticed that they had a red flag,'and that the standard-bearer was a man known to be of Russian extraction. The men of district No. 20 lined up with bayonets fixed, and the rioters broke and fleiJ, but only to reform and come on again. As they marched the Russian appeared to bo the lender, and as ho appronohed he fired a riflo. Tho bullet entered a hut and shot through the heart a man named Hickman, who was writing a letter. That shot wns tho beginning of a miniature battle, but fortunately there was littlo ammunition. Colonel Cnlquhoun had said when he collected the ammunition, "Thero must be no casualties in this business," but lie could not provide ngainst tho possibility of individual men having n few cartridges. Shots wero fired on both sides, not by volleys, but singly, with the intention of picking oil' particular men, and one of tho first to .fall was the Russian with the red flag. The fight may ' have lasted twonty minutes or a little more. When it ceased tho camp came to its senses and order was restored. Tho killing sobered file most mutinous. At 4 o'clock discipline was in force as usual. The Commandant ordered Ihe arrest of tho ringleaders of the disturbance, and between 50 and f>o men were taken. There is good reason for saying that a foreign element among tho troops played a prominent part, both in stirring up the trouble and leading the riot, but to what extent tlie use of the red flag—it was a piece of bunting that had been flown at a canteen—signified a political impulse behind the unhappy business it is difficult on present information to say with any confidence. But in the camp itself there is a strong belief that Bolshevism tried to raise ite head and was scotched.

General Sir Richnrd Turner, V.C., from (he Canadian Headquarters in London, visited the. camp, tiwelling by tram, not by aeroplane, and addressed the men, mid was «ble to inform them that there would be four transports to Canada within ii reasonable time. Colonel Colquhoun, after referring to the uisBntisfaetion of the men at cancelling of transport sailings, said that Colonel Thackrey sent word that four transports were to be provided without delay, and that if tho camp had been patient for another twenty-four hours the cause of the grievance would have gone. The number of men killed outright was three, and two had died of their injuries. Of the 23 others injured some had been shot and others had been wounded by missiles, 'lhe two subalterns were struck by the missiles when they were going through the crowd. They were only slightly injured. ino camp headquarters had not been touched, and tho damage had been confined to such buildings as the canteens. No troops had been brought into the camp from outside to quell tho disorder.