Early Life
Vincent McCann.
Vincent was born on 29 April 1894 when the family lived at Tallanstown Co. Louth. He was the fourth of nine children. (One of the children, Cecil, born 1892, died at the age of six.)
They later moved to Belfast, where Edith was born, and lived in a small terrace house on Bedeque Street, Number 27. This street has gone now. They lived here when he started his apprenticeship with Harland and Wolff shipyard as a fitter. At that time, his father had retired from the RIC and was working as a warder in the nearby Antrim Road Gaol.
The next information we have about him is from what he told my mother, backed up by census data. He served an apprenticeship in an engineering works, possibly Harland and Woolf, or else associated with the shipyard. His trade, given in the 1911 census, was Fitter, and this was the trade he took up in the army when he joined. As mentioned further down, he had to take a test for the army, and this was carried out by a civilian inspector and the location was Queens Island, which is where the shipyard was – there would probably be a number of engineering works there too. The interesting thing is that he would have been working there when the Titanic was being fitted out at the shipyard. He had a piece of steel in his eye, which he told me himself he got when he was working as a fitter. I do wish I’d asked more questions when he was alive!
Military Career
The most information about Vincent comes from his British Army records, which fortunately were saved. (During World War II, a number of British Army records were destroyed during the Blitz. About half were recovered, and happily, Vincent’s were among those. The original copies show burn marks around the edges.)
He joined the Army on 18th September 1914 in Belfast, on a short service enlistment, which meant he’d do three years, or until the war ended, whichever was longest. He was aged 20, which agrees with the birth date of 1894. He was posted to the Royal Engineers, with the job of Fitter “Skilled” and on 1 Jan 1915 was promoted to Sapper; his Regimental number was 57563. (catalogue ref. no. WO 372/12).
His Certificate of Trade Proficiency also dated 1 January 1915, shows he was tested at Queens Island, Belfast by a civilian inspector, and found to be “very good” which is the highest grade they have on the test. This was signed by John McDougall, Iron Turner. On 15 Jan 1915 he was transferred to Athy. But another document describes his transfer from Clandeboge Camp to Kilworth, (Co. Tipperary) to the 75th Field Company. This was dated 7 November 1914. We have it that he told Uncle Leo that this was due to friction with protestant troops at the training camp in Belfast. His occupation in the army was Iron Turner, which I believe is a lathe operator. His physical report on enlistment states him to be 5 feet 8 1/8 inches, weight 136 lbs (or 9 stone 10 lbs), his chest measurement was 36 ½ inches. Hair brown, eyes blue.
Vincent, on enlistment was posted to RE 122 Company and on the 15/1/1915 he was transferred to 75th F (Field) company. They were transferred to Athy for training.
He embarked with the BEF on 24th August 1915 for France. He was issued several campaign medals (I wonder where they ended up?):
1914 -1915 Star; British War Medal; Victory Medal.,
On 25 July 1916, he was wounded, apparently by gas. His Casualty – Active service form shows the following:
2 November 1915 Absent from his billet from 8 pm to 10 pm.
25 February 1916 ?? Unreadable.
19 February 1917 Admitted to hospital.
24 February 1917 Rejoined his unit.
9 July 1917 Remustered (promoted) from Fitter to Turner and raised to superior grade of C.P.
1 December 1917 Admitted to Hospital.
15 December 1917 Rejoined his unit.
18 January 1918 (Date of record entry.) Leave to U.K. (Presumably Belfast) from 15 December 1917 to 29 December 1917. So it seems the army let him go home for Christmas after being discharged from hospital.
10 January 1919 Fourteen days leave to U.K. Another document shown is a “Protection Certificate of Identity” which is dated 27 January 1919, where he is granted 28 days furlough.
There is a Receipt (signed by Vincent McCann) for the 1914 – 1915 Star on 22 November 1920 and British War Medal dated 25 November 1920, with his signature on it.
His company conduct sheet, which has all entries annotated “in the field” i.e. in the war zone shows the following:
11 January 1915 Absent from his billet and drunk about 10 pm. He got 7 days FP No 2 for that. On 6 February 1918 he overstayed his pass from Arras? Frp, 9 pm 6th until 10.10 pm. For this his pass was stopped for 14 days.
On 19 December 1918, he was absent from midday stables (whatever that was?) from 11.30 to 12.30 and he got 1 day CB which I presume was confined to barracks.
Another statement showed that he didn’t have any claim for disability, and that was dated 27 Jan 1919. Strangely enough, he died on that day, 52 years later, quite possibly partly from long term effects from his gassing in 1916. His health problems which ultimately led to him losing his leg, and probably his death, were circulation problems. Apparently one of the effects of mustard gas poisoning, is to cause circulation problems in later life. However, he was a heavy smoker all his life, as is attested by almost every photograph of him with a cig dangling from his fingers. So we can’t put all the blame on Kaiser Wilhelm II.
While he was in the army, his home address was shown as: 27 Bedeque Road, Belfast. In later records, the address changed to 13 Cranburn Street, Belfast, so somewhere between 1915 and 1918 the family moved.
The only other story we have (via my mother) was that he joined the IRA during the ‘Troubles.’ It must have been fairly late however, because he wasn’t demobilized until 1920. She tells the story of the Black and Tans looking for him, and he ran into a field where his father was working making hay stacks. His dad apparently hid him under one of the stacks. I hope he didn’t suffer from allergies! After Independence, he joined the Customs and Excise, where he reached the rank of Preventive Officer.