Armstrong, Charles Johnstone

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: Owen A. Cooke, “ARMSTRONG, CHARLES JOHNSTONE,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 16, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/armstrong_charles_johnstone_16E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Engineer and militia and army officer; b. 27 Aug. 1872 in Montreal, son of Charles Newhouse Armstrong and Amelia Frances Johnstone; m. 19 April 1913 Flora Macdonald Grant Kittson in Ottawa; they had no children; d. 23 Jan. 1934 in Montreal and was buried in Mount Royal Cemetery in Outremont (Montreal).
    • Charles Johnstone Armstrong attended the High School of Montreal before going to the Royal Military College of Canada (RMC) in Kingston, Ont., in 1889. As cadet No.293, he graduated company sergeant-major in 1893. Three of his brothers would also study at the college. On 18 May 1894 Armstrong was commissioned a second lieutenant in the 5th Battalion of Infantry (Royal Scots of Canada), a fashionable militia unit in Montreal. The following year he was promoted lieutenant. In civilian life he became an engineer, having studied engineering at RMC, where it formed an important part of the curriculum.
    • At the outbreak of the South African War in 1899 Armstrong volunteered for service with Canada’s first contingent, and he was accepted as a lieutenant in the 2nd (Special Service) Battalion, Royal Canadian Regiment of Infantry. One of the three officers in E Company, which was recruited from the Montreal area, he embarked on 30 October for South Africa. He took part in the battle of Paardeberg, and during the final assault on 27 Feb. 1900 he was slightly wounded in the thigh.
    • At the outbreak of the First World War, Armstrong, like so many other militia officers, offered his services to the Department of Militia and Defence, suggesting that he raise a corps of pioneers or of construction troops. Instead, he was appointed to the command of the proposed Divisional Engineers then assembling at Valcartier, Que. At age 42, his hair now grey, he was commissioned a brevet lieutenant-colonel in the Canadian Expeditionary Force on 5 Sept. 1914, and took charge of the 28 officers and 855 troops who had been selected for overseas service. Organized into a headquarters, two field companies, and a signal company, with a third field company added just before the men sailed, Armstrong’s engineers embarked for England on 28 September. On arrival his first duty was to supervise the erection of the huts being built for the Canadians on Salisbury Plain by his former employer, Sir John Jackson Limited.
    • Armstrong went to France as chief engineer of the 1st Canadian Division on 7 April 1915. His responsibilities expanded rapidly over the following year. He was the senior engineering officer when the division fought its first major engagement, the second battle of Ypres, in April–May 1915, and he participated in the subsequent attacks at Festubert and Givenchy-lez-La Bassée. Trench warfare made ever-increasing demands on the engineers and resulted in the deployment of such novel units as tunnelling companies and tramway troops, who became part of the chief engineer’s responsibilities. When the 2nd Canadian Division arrived in France in mid September, the Canadian Corps was formed and Armstrong moved up the ranks to command the corps engineers as a temporary brigadier-general from 13 September. He had been mentioned in dispatches in June 1915 and appeared again in January 1916, when he was also awarded a cmg.
    • On 29 Feb. 1916, while Armstrong was carrying out the reconnaissance of a bridge near Bernay in northern France, his train was struck from behind by another and he was seriously hurt. Not until 16 Jan. 1918, nearly two years after the accident, did he return to the front. He would carry the effects of the injuries for the rest of his life.
    • In February Armstrong was back in France. William Bethune Lindsay had taken over for him as brigadier-general on 7 March 1916, and Armstrong, now chief engineer on defences, was employed by the engineer-in-chief at the general headquarters of the British Expeditionary Force. The Germans made their last great offensive the following month. When the 5th British Army front threatened to collapse, he helped to put together an ad hoc force of British, American, and Canadian engineers and other specialist troops to hold the line as infantry.
    • From 4 Nov. 1918 to March 1919 Armstrong was chief engineer of the British VII Corps in France, tasked with the repair and reconstruction of all canals in France and Belgium devastated by the war. He returned to England on 6 March and to Canada on 14 June. He had received further honours.
  • Third Great Grandson of Proven United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=3102
  • Find A Grave: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/186118694/charles-johnstone-armstrong