First to Die: The First Canadian Navy Casualties in the First World War

It may surprise many Canadians to discover that the first of their 66,573 countrymen to die in the First World War were sailors rather than soldiers. That dubious distinction belongs to four young midshipmen— known as “mids”—from Halifax’s Royal Naval College of Canada (RNCC). In August 1914, shortly after the First World War broke out, William Palmer, first in his graduating class, and Arthur Silver, senior cadet captain, both from Halifax; Malcolm Cann of Yarmouth and John Hatheway from Fredericton joined the crew of HMS Good Hope, a Royal Navy armoured cruiser and flagship of a squadron under Rear Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock.

 

Within six weeks, all four would be dead—along with the 900-man crew of Good Hope, including Cradock—the result of a fateful encounter with a German squadron under Admiral Graf von Spee off the coast of Chile on November 1. On the way to that battle, the reader learns about the founding of the Royal Canadian Navy and the RNCC, the education of young mids and the strategy and tactics employed by the Germans and British as a deadly game of cat-and-mouse played out in the eastern Pacific.

 

The first round clearly went to the Germans at the Battle of Coronel, in which four outgunned and outranged British ships bravely attacked four German adversaries and were soundly defeated. Round two however, went to the British, who hunted down von Spee and defeated his squadron at the Battle of the Falklands five weeks later. The sacrifice of the four Canadian mids was avenged.

 

Dartmouth author and retired navy captain Bryan Elson brings the same high standard of historical research and accuracy to this book as he did to his well-received 2008 Nelson’s Yankee Captain: The Life of Boston Loyalist Sir Benjamin Hallowell. This is a great read for anyone interested in First World War or naval history, especially with its local connections. A large selection of excellent period photographs, drawings and maps enhance the text. —John Boileau