Abstract
The Northern Review 44 (2017): 139–162 The Yukon Motor Machine Gun Battery, as it was officially titled as of June 16 1916, began life in Dawson City in October 1914, as Boyle’s Mounted Machine Gun Detachment. Its formation resulted from the coalescence of two factors: the interest of the Canadian Minister of Militia Defence, Sam Hughes, to have mobile machine gun units form a part of the emerging Canadian Expeditionary Force; and the willingness of the wealthy Yukon mining entrepreneur, Joseph Whiteside Boyle, to fund such a unit as an expression of his desire to contribute to the emerging Canadian war effort. With a strength of only fifty men, however, it was a small unit, and military authorities soon realized that mounted units like it would be of little use in the high intensity trench fighting of the Western Front. After its arrival in England in July 1915, its very existence became problematic for a time as authorities tried to figure out what to do with it. This paper explores the conditions that resulted in its survival and continued service when a need was found for motor machine gun batteries to serve with each the four Canadian divisions. The Yukons were attached to the 4th Division, and in time became specialists in a form of machine gunnery that, while suited to the needs of the industrialized form of warfare that characterized that conflict, was no doubt a far cry from the idealized expectations of the unit’s founders and original membership. This article is part of a special collection of papers originally presented at a conference on “The North and the First World War,” held May 2016 in Whitehorse, Yukon. https://doi.org/10.22584/nr44.2017.008
Highlights
This paper explores the condi ons that resulted in its survival and con nued service when a need was found for motor machine gun ba eries to serve with each of the four Canadian divisions
The Yukons were a ached to the 4th Division, and in me became specialists in a form of machine gunnery that, while suited to the needs of the industrialized form of warfare that characterized that conflict, was no doubt a far cry from the idealized expecta ons of the unit’s founders and original membership
With pressure being exerted by Hughes from Ottawa, the War Office relented that June and, despite its unconventional composition, allowed Brutinel’s brigade to join the 1st Division as its motor machine gun unit
Summary
Boyle’s mounted Yukoners were undergoing preparatory drills in Vancouver when, on 20 November, Hughes authorized formation of the third of the three mobile machine gun units and the second to be motorized. These extras were to be paid for by the militia department.18 (Take that British War Office!) as with the Bordens, when the Eaton Motor Machine Gun Brigade left for Great
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