I went into a thrift store this past week and found a couple of books worth buying. One of them was a smallish, soft-leather bound book titled The Story of the Sixty-Sixth C. F. A., Edinburgh, 1919. I looked inside to the title page and to the frontispiece that depicted a military man astride his horse. So, I thought a history of a Scottish regiment. OK, worth getting.
I was very surprised and pleased that upon a more in-depth review upon getting home that the little book was about a Canadian outfit, with a very strong link to Nova Scotia. And that C. F. A. was not Come-from-Away but rather Canadian Field Artillery.
The Sixty-Sixth was mobilized in Montreal in 1916 and was overwhelmed by men wanting to sign up from coast to coast. There is a listing of the members of the battery in the rear of the book and there are many from Nova Scotia and the man astride the horse was Major S. C. Oland of the brewing family in Halifax. Colonel Oland was very well known as the builder to the Bluenose II and for his fabulous stone mansion in south-end Halifax.
The book has a number of black and white photographs and 3 maps including a fine fold-out
map.
Here is the description used in our Abebooks listing:
The Story of the Sixty-Sixth C. F. A.; done in print by Turnbull & Spears, Edinburgh for the Sixty Sixth Battery, C. F. A., 1919. Written by members of the Sixty-Sixth, in Autre Eglise Belgium, as they waited for demobilisation, April 1919. C. F. A. stands for Canadian Field Artillery. The book has 13 black and white phots and 3 maps including a fold-out map showing the route of the Battery during the march to the Rhine. The 66th was recruited in Montreal in March 1916, but members were from across Canada. The commanding officer from 1916 through the end of the was Major S. C. Oland, a member of the brewing clan from Halifax. There is a Nominal Roll of Members showing where they come from, in the back of the book. From the preface – This is a simple story, written by simple souls, and intended to be read by their peers and equals. The whole production is the idea of a moment, planned in a day, and ground out in a night by rusty pens long after the clop-cloping of Belgian peasants’ sabots along the cobblestones of Autre Eglise had ceased to be. The wording may be bad, the construction faulty, the composition impossible and the topic involved, because of the very fact that it is the product of many minds. It is a chronicle of the events in the everyday life of the artilleryman, told with severe simplicity and retiring plainness by those who have actually lived it. This is its only claim to greatness – it is true. We wish to thank Major Oland for his kindly interests in our endeavours, Lieut. H. E. Bates for valuable and essential information, Lieut. B. F. Gossage and Gunner G. H. McLean, who ably managed the business part of the production and the voluntary committee consisting of Sergeant Sharpe and Signallers Stewart and Armstrong whose efforts in compiling records and gathering material for the writers were greatly appreciated.
This book, 148 pages is in very-good condition. It is soft-leather bound and the spine is faded but still very much legible. There is a little bit of foxing in the text. The top edge of the text block is gilded. A well-made book that is very scarce and it must be one of the earliest post-war military histories written, certainly one by the soldiers themselves.
