Canada turned away at least 200 Black volunteers before the end of 1915, then in the summer of 1916 created a separate unit for them: the No. 2 Construction Battalion, the largest Black unit in the country’s military history, according to The Canadian Encyclopedia.
The Department of Defence and Militia authorized the battalion on July 5, 1916. It was a segregated, non-combatant formation, and it remains Canada’s first and only all-Black battalion-sized unit, the Canadian Army said.
The encyclopedia reports that some of the earlier volunteers were told it was “a white man’s war.” The Canadian Army said Black communities pressed the government and the military for nearly two years before the battalion was approved.
Lt.-Col. Daniel Sutherland, a railway contractor from River John, N.S., commanded the unit, according to the encyclopedia. Headquarters were first in Pictou, N.S., and moved to Truro on Sept. 9, 1916. Recruiting began in the Maritimes on July 19 and spread to Quebec and points west on Aug. 30. By the end of December 1916, the battalion had 575 soldiers.
The Canadian Army said more than 600 men were accepted, most from Nova Scotia but also from New Brunswick, Ontario, western Canada, the United States and the West Indies. Its leadership was largely white. The only Black officer to deploy overseas was the chaplain, Rev. William Andrew White, who held the rank of captain.
The battalion sailed from Halifax on the SS Southland on March 28, 1917, and reached Liverpool, England, on April 7, the encyclopedia said. It sailed with 19 officers and 595 men, well short of the 1,049 a full battalion required.
The British War Office then reorganized it as No. 2 Canadian Construction Company, with 500 officers and men. The remaining soldiers stayed in England as reinforcements. In May 1917, the company reached the La Joux Forest in the Jura Mountains of France to support the Canadian Forestry Corps, according to the encyclopedia. (The encyclopedia and the Canadian Army give slightly different dates in May for the move.)
The work was heavy and essential. Members cut, milled and hauled timber, moved it to railheads for use in trench construction, maintained roads and camp utilities, and ran machinery, the Canadian Army said. Some helped build a logging railway about 3.2 kilometres long.
The men were kept out of front-line roles. The Canadian Army said the soldiers faced racism and segregation throughout their service. It also noted that the Military Service Act, passed Aug. 29, 1917, made Black men who had earlier been turned away subject to conscription.
Men began returning to England on Dec. 2, 1918, and most were discharged by the end of February 1919 after ships reached Halifax in January, the encyclopedia said. The battalion was disbanded on Sept. 15, 1920. The Canadian Army said most of the men came home to the same discrimination they had faced before going overseas.
Public recognition came slowly. A commemorative plaque was unveiled in Toronto in July 1920, but the encyclopedia said the battalion was largely forgotten until Calvin Ruck began researching it in the 1980s. In 1982, Ruck and the Black Cultural Centre of Nova Scotia held a banquet for nine surviving veterans, according to the Canadian Army.
In 1992, the federal government recognized the creation of the battalion as a national historic event. A granite monument went up in Pictou in 1993. Canada Post issued a commemorative stamp in February 2016.
On July 9, 2022, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau apologized to the battalion’s descendants at a ceremony in Truro, on the field where the unit paraded before leaving for Europe in March 1917. “For the blatant anti-Black hate and systemic racism that denied these men dignity in life and in death, we are sorry,” he said, according to the Prime Minister’s Office.
The month before, in June 2022, the Canadian Armed Forces awarded the battalion the “France and Flanders, 1917-18” battle honour. The Canadian Army said 4 Engineer Support Regiment now perpetuates its legacy.
The battalion’s story is documented in the Nova Scotia Archives, which maintains a nominal roll of its members.
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Sources: The Canadian Encyclopedia, “No. 2 Construction Battalion” (thecanadianencyclopedia.ca); Canadian Army, “No. 2 Construction Battalion” (canada.ca); Prime Minister’s Office, July 9, 2022 apology (pm.gc.ca); Nova Scotia Archives, No. 2 Construction Battalion nominal roll (archives.novascotia.ca/2construction). The photo above is a file photo of a Nova Scotia harbour and does not show the battalion.
