From the News

Dated: March 8, 1919

THE CAMP RIOT.
FULL STORY
CASUALTIES AND DAMAGE
(From our Special Correspondant)
RHYL, March 7,

The serious riot which began in the Canadian Camp at Kimnel Park on Tuesday night and lasted through the greater part of Wednesday had 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 number of the injured is 23, including two subalterns. The circumstantial story of a major who has gained the V.C. being trampled to death is also without foundation in fact. The major is alive and unhurt .

When the additions made by rumour have been deducted 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 blood.

THE MEN'S GRIEVANCES.

The best way to dispel any untrue ideas of the riot and, at the same time, to convey a trustworthy account of what happened will be to give the event in narrative form, with a preliminary of the grievances which the men in the camp have felt. They have been annoyed at the delay in getting home. The sailing of severa1 boats to Canada has been canceled. 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 due to leave have been detained in the camp. Another cause of complaint, the substance of which is not easy to ascertain, is that some conscribed men have been given precedence in demobilization over vo1unteer of 1914. It has been the definite intention at Kinmel Park to release first; the men who first joined the Army, but in France demobilization is being carried out by units, and possibly the occasion of the men's complaint may have arisen at a distance, and not on the spot. At any rate, it has been one of the causes of the unrest. That the commander of the camp, Colonel Colquhoun , was aware of the state of feeling s indicated by the fact that Colonel Thackrey 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 three-quarters 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 the 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 mapped out in wings 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 goes right through to district No. 20.

SACKING THE CANTEENS

The first disturbance occurred about 9 o'clock on Tuesday night in the No. 7 canteen, which was looted. It spread from canteen to canteen, the rioters sacking one after another of the Navy and Army Canteen's Board's premises, and drinking the beer and appropriating the tobacco and cigarettes. It is not possible to give a consecutive account o the occurrences of the night and the next morning, and they may be mentioned here in the wrong order, but the state of affairs by the middle of Wednesday afternoon seems to have been that in nearly all parts of the camp the canteens and the officers' and sergeants' messes had been looted. The quartermaster's stores had been broken open, a collection of shops known as Tin Town, on the confines of the camp. had been wrecked, and three gangs of rioters of about 200 strong were roving about doing further mischief.

A number of girls employed it the canteen were in the camp. During the night most of them were in the hostel. Some men appear to have entered a room where two girls were sleeping, and to have taken away some overalls, but none of the girls were molested. The manageress responsible for the girls dec1ares that not the slightest attempt was made to interfere with any of them. A large quantity of' stores was carried away or thrown about in the rioting, and many thousands of pounds' worth of beer and tobacco was stolen. But perhaps a larger quantity of beer was thrown away by order of the Commandant when the seriousness of the disturbance was realized. He gave instructions that the camp was to be made absolutely dry, and so far as was then possible the order was carried out. There is a story, which, however, lacks corroboration, that a brewers' dray which arrived in the camp on Wednesday was looted. If that be true, it may account for the horrible turn of events in the course of that afternoon.

All this time the officers of the camp were trying to pacify the unruly elements. Colonel Colquhoun himself was 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 discipline. Whole sections of the camp were stedfast, but the unruly element from a number of districts acted independently, spreading the disturbance over a wide area. Colonel Colquhoun 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 the 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 buildings have suffered from stray missiles, but they were not the object of an organized attack. Although during Tuesday night 17 men were injured, their injuries were slight.

RUSSIAN WITH RED FLAG.

The new phase began in the middle of Wednesday afternoon. By then two or three of the 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 rioters advanced upon district No. 20 about 3 o'clock,. It was noticed that they had a red flag, and that the standard bearer was a ma known to be of Russian extraction. The men of district No. 20 lined up with bayonets fixed, and the rioters broke and fled, but only to reform and come on again. As they marched the Russian appeared to be the leader, and as be approached he fired a rifle. The bullet entered a hut and shot through the heart a man named Hickman , who was writing a letter. That shot was the beginning of a miniature battle, but fortunately there was little ammunition. Colonel Colquhoun had said when he collected thee ammunition, “There must be no casualties in this business,” but he cou1d not provide against the possibility of individual men having a few cartridges. Shots were fired on both sides, not by volleys, but singly, with the intention of picking off particular men, and one of the first to fall was the Russian with the red flag.

ARREST OF RINGLEADERS.

The fight may have lasted 20 minutes or a little more. When 'it ceased the camp came to its senses and order was restored. The killing sobered the most mutinous. At 4 o'clock discipline was in force as usual The Commandant ordered the arrest of the ring1eaders of the disturbance, and between 50 and 60 men were taken. There is good reason for saying that a foreign element among the troops played a prominent part, both in stirring up the trouble and leading the riot, but to what extent the 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 its head and was scotched.

General Sir Richard Turner , V.C., from the Canadian Headquarters in London, visited the camp yesterday, travelling by train, not by aeroplane, and addressed the men, and was able to inform them that there would be four transports to Canada within a reasonable time. Colonel Colquhoun, after referring to the dissatisfaction of the men at cancelling of transport sailings, said yesterday that Colonel Thackrey sent word on Tuesday night that four transports were to be provided without delay, and that if the camp had been patient for another 24 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. The two subalterns were struck by the missiles when they were going through the crowd. They were only lightly injured. The camp headquarters had not been touched, and the damage had been confined to such buildings as the canteens. No troops had been brought into the camp from outside to quell the disorder.

OFFICIAL ACCOUNT.
CAUSES OF THE OUTBREAK.

The Ministry; Oversea Military Forces of Canada, last night issued the following statement concerning the incidents at Kinmel Camp:

In view of the splendid discipline and record uniformly maintained by Canadian troops since the beginning of the war in England and in France, the incident at Kinme1 Park is very deeply regretted at Headquarters, Oversea Military Forces of Canada.

It is considered that in comparison with others the discipline amongst Canadian troops has been of high order. It is greatly • regretted that some of the reports of the incident have been exaggerated. Immediately after the Armistice Kimnel Park was secured as a concentration area through which Canadian troops passed on their way to Canada, being situated conveniently to Liverpool, their embarkation port. All documentation is completed there and the troops are sorted into drafts according to their destination in Canada. Considering the shortage of shipping, the Canadian authorities have congratulated themselves upon the splendid record which has been made, on the whole, in dispatching troops to Canada. In the month of February, however the Ministry of Shipping were unable to furnish sufficient ships to carry out the programme as promised to the Canadians. Owing to the program in February and early in March having fallen short by fully one-third, there, occurred a “backing up” from Kinmel Park through the areas in England and through to France. This has caused very great disappointment to Canadian soldiers, who have been overseas for periods ranging up to four years or more without leave to their homes.

The withdrawal of some ships and postponement of the sailings of others from time to time, particularly after soldiers had been documentized and medically boarded, based on the shipping allocated, has been very trying to the drafts, and it is considered that that led chiefly to the disturbance which occurred.

Immediate upon the matter being reported to the Chief of the General Staff, Lieutenant-General Sir Richard Turner, V.C., K.C.B., he went to Kinmel Park and addressed the men in 15 different places. They seemed to appreciate his explanations and there are not likely to be any, further disturbances. There are at Kinmel Park approximately 15,000 of all ranks who have been dispatched there as being the last step before boarding ship for Canada. Had the number of men been able to embark in February according to the programme which it was confidently thought could be carried out, the trouble would not have occurred, but the shipping situation, owing to strikes and for other reasons, is admitted to be an extremely difficult matter to control. It is, however, hoped by the Canadian authorities that there will not be a recurrence of the delays which have hitherto taken place.

It is not, attempted in the slightest degree to excuse the misconduct of the men who took part in the disturbance. Many of the offenders have already been placed under arrest, and these, with the others involved, will be rigorously dealt with. During the disturbance there was a certain amount of damage done, and it was discovered that civilians were concerned. Up to the present 12 of these civilians have been arrested and handed over to the civil authorities. During the disturbance there were killed thee rioters and two men on picket duty. There were 21 soldiers wounded, of whom two were officers. There is no foundation for the report that a major who is a V.C has been either killed or injured. The troops at KinmelPark are concentrated in “wings” representing the military districts in Canada to which they will proceed. They are, not in their original units, these wings being composite formations consisting of personnel belonging to many different units. This sorting out is done in deference to the wish of the authorities in Canada, in order to avoid delay when the men reach the Dominion.

There has been some alleged dissatisfaction because of troops drawn from Canada under the Military Service Act getting priority over those who have seen longer service. The troops who were in the Canadian Corps at the time of the Armistice are being returned to Canada by units, in the formations that then existed, the first to return being a small number who were embarked on March 1.

Soldiers not in the corps, such as casualties, railway and forestry troops, and others, where available, are demobilized on the principle of “longest service, first demobilized - married men having the preference.”

A Court of Inquiry, of which Brigadier-General J. B. MacBrian, C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O., is President, has been convened to make a thorough investigation into all circumstances in connexion with the disturbance.