His troops called him “Guts and Gaiters”. Many have described him as Canada’s greatest military commander.
Arthur Currie, one of the many heroic faces of World War 1, is appointed General commanding the 1st Canadian division of the new Canadian corps, September 13th, 1915. This Canadian History for Kids, Sketches of Canada, looks at the career of Sir Arthur Currie.
Sir Arthur William Currie was the first Canadian-appointed commander of the Canadian Corps during WWI. He began the war with no professional military experience but several years of service in the Canadian Militia. He was appointed commander of the 2nd Canadian Infantry Brigade on 29 September 1914, commander of the 1st Canadian Division on 13 September 1915 and commander of the Canadian Corps on 9 June 1917.
This Canadian History for Kids article begins when William Currie was born in Napperton, Ontario, just west of Strathroy. He was educated in local common schools and at the Strathroy District Collegiate Institute, and briefly attended the University of Toronto before moving to British Columbia in 1894 to teach.
He had the unique distinction of starting his military career on the very bottom rung as a pre-war militia gunner before rising through the ranks to become the first Canadian commander of the four divisions of the unified Canadian Corps of the Canadian Expeditionary Force. He was the first Canadian to attain the rank of full general. Currie’s success was based on his ability to rapidly adapt brigade tactics to the battles of trench warfare, using set “bite-and-hold” tactics.
He is generally considered to be among the most capable commanders of the Western Front, and one of the finest commanders in Canadian military history. Currie participated in all major actions of the Canadian forces, including PASSCHENDAELE, during the war but is best known for his planning and leadership during the last 100 days, beginning August 8 and lasting until 11 November 1918, perhaps the most successful of all Allied offensives during the war.
British wartime Prime Minister Lloyd George called Currie a “brilliant military commander,” and might have appointed him commander of all British forces had the war continued.
This Canadian History for Kids article continues after the war when Currie served as inspector general of the militia forces in Canada from August 1919 to July 1920, and in 1920 became principal and vice-chancellor of McGill University.
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He didn’t write about ghosts, but he might have been one Canada’s most famous ghostwriters!
Leslie McFarlane passed away on September 6th, 1977. A journalist, novelist, screenwriter, and filmmaker, McFarlane is most famous for ghostwriting many of the early books in the very successful Hardy Boys series, using the pseudonym Franklin W. Dixon. This Canadian History for Kids, Sketches of Canada, looks at the career of Leslie McFarlane.
This Canadian History for Kids begins with Leslie Macfarlane being born in 1902 and raised in the town of Haileybury, Ontario. He became a freelance writer shortly after high school. He and his family moved to Whitby, Ontario, in 1936.
As a young man he worked in Sudbury, Ontario, as a newspaper reporter, then for a weekly paper in Toronto, before taking a job at the Springfield Republican newspaper in Springfield, Massachusetts.
While in the U.S., he replied to a want ad placed by the Stratemeyer Syndicate, publisher of such popular books as Nancy Drew, Tom Swift and the Bobbsey Twins. He also freelanced in 1926 and 1927 as one of the authors using the pseudonym Roy Rockwood to write many of the Dave Fearless serialized mystery novels.
This led to the Hardy Boys. Using the pseudonym Franklin W. Dixon, McFarlane wrote 19 of the first 25 books between 1927 and 1946, and 21 overall. McFarlane earned as little as $85 per book during the Great Depression, yet he continued because he had a growing family.
The books sell more than a million copies a year. Several additional volumes are published annually, and the boys’ adventures have been translated into more than 25 languages. The Hardy Boys have been featured in computer games and five television shows.
While still writing for the series for the Stratemeyer Syndicate, McFarlane returned to Canada to work for the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). As part of the NFB in Montreal, he wrote and directed documentaries and short dramas including the 1951 documentary Royal Journey, Here’s Hockey, a 1953 documentary about ice hockey featuring Montreal Canadiens star Jean Beliveau. He also wrote the documentary titled Herring Hunt, nominated for an Academy Award for Live Action Short Film.
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