soldiers were buried. Remains were often destroyed, lost, or rendered unidentifiable, especially with earlier in the war burials. In more than twenty-five years of leading tours to the sites of memory and meaning on the old Western Front, I have visited ADANAC dozens of times and on only one occasion have I ever encountered another visitor from outside of our tour group. Despite its grand scale and because of the high percentage of unknown burials, ADANAC is largely a “forgotten” place. That is why on the day I did saw someone else in the cemetery, I took immediate notice. But then this other visitor was hard not to miss. He was kilted and wore a Great War highland uniform. A set of pipes rested on his shoulder. I watched as this lone piper made his way with purpose along the rows of burials and stopped at one specific grave. He came to quiet attention. I knew who he was visiting. He filled his pipes with air and proceeded to play a Lament. There in that windswept and forgotten cemetery situated on a former battlefield, the lone piper paid fitting tribute to another piper, who came this way long before. I knew the headstone the piper visited was that of Piper James Richardson, VC. James Cleland Richardson, known as Jimmy, was born in Scotland in 1895, one of seven children in the Richardson family. Like so many other families in the UK at the time who sought opportunity, they came to Canada. The family moved sometime between 1911 and 1913 and initially lived in Vancouver but then moved to Chilliwack where James’ father became Chief of Police. James worked as an apprentice electrician in the False Creek area and joined the cadet corps of the 72nd Seaforth Highlanders of Canada and soon became a Piper in the regiment’s pipe band. James was just a few months shy of his 19th birthday when the Great War began in August 1914. Soon after he volunteered for the Canadian Expeditionary Force and was taken on strength on 23 September 1914 at Valcartier, Quebec. He was then assigned to 16th Battalion (Canadian Scottish), as a piper. The Battalion sailed for Britain in early October 1914 and arrived in France on 9 February 1915. James’ baptism of fire came in April 1915 when the 16th Battalion, as part of the 1st Canadian Division, helped stem the German offensive at St Julien, Belgium. On 22nd April, the Canadian Scottish were part of a night attack to flush the advancing Germans out of Kitcheners’ Wood. In this action, James reached a farmhouse, around which a group of Germans were sheltering from the heavy fire. James was spotted by a German officer who waved his men forward, but James shot him and ran back to tell his Sergeant Major of the German positions. James was lucky to survive this first action. The 16th Battalion started off with just over 800 men that night; by the next morning only 5 officers and 263 men were left to answer roll call. By the summer of 1916, the Canadian Expeditionary Force had expanded to three divisions in the field with a fourth on its way. While the Canadians were deployed in Belgium around Ypres, the bulk of the British Army had assembled to the south in France in preparation for the Somme Offensive.
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