Warrant Officer Daniyal Elahi, 337 Queen’s York Rangers Royal Canadian Military Cadets
Rising up, I typically felt as if Muslim Canadians have been a current a part of this nation — as if our connection started solely in 1965, when my grandfather immigrated from Pakistan. At school, the Canadian troopers we realized about appeared to share the identical background and the identical story. Nothing instructed that somebody like me, a younger Muslim Military Cadet, had anywhere in that historical past.
That modified once I found Non-public Hasan Amat.
His identify first appeared to me not in my historical past textbooks, however in a passing on-line reference. A Malay Muslim seaman born in Singapore in 1894, he enlisted twice in Canada, skilled in England, and in the end died preventing with the first Canadian Infantry Battalion at Hill 70 in 1917. The extra I learn, the extra unbelievable his story turned — and the extra confused I felt that I had by no means heard it earlier than.
My household and I, by means of our public historical past venture Our Shared Sacrifice, obtained his full service file from Library and Archives Canada (LAC). Thirty-seven pages, crammed with fragments of a life: his attestation papers, his medical data, his pay sheets, the 2 wills he signed, and the brief, devastating entry confirming his demise on that fateful day of August 20, 1917. These weren’t summary details. They have been the items of a younger man’s journey, recorded in his personal hand.
Non-public Hasan Amat’s first attestation paper, accomplished in Halifax in January 1916. Library and Archives Canada, Personnel File of Non-public Hasan Amat (Reg. Nos. 478860 & 1075269).
Amat was born in Singapore and labored as a sailor, a part of an enormous maritime workforce that linked ports throughout Southeast Asia and the British Empire. In some unspecified time in the future, he reached Halifax and enlisted with the Royal Canadian Regiment (RCR) on January 14, 1916. His faith is listed as “Mohamedan,” the time period then used for Muslim — an necessary element, on condition that the Canadian Expeditionary Drive (CEF) attestation type had no checkbox for Muslims, solely house for Christian denominations and “Different.” The truth that he wrote it in himself makes him one of many earliest clearly recognized Muslim troopers to serve Canada.
After 5 months, he was discharged for medical causes, however as an alternative of giving up, he re-enlisted simply two weeks later, this time with the 4th Abroad Pioneer Battalion in St. Andrews, New Brunswick. On his second attestation, underneath “Earlier Army Service,” he wrote a brief, memorable line:
“5 minutes in R.C.R. at Halifax.”
To me, that sentence displays willpower, resilience, and a way of humour — qualities that made me admire him instantly.
His file exhibits that after re-enlisting, he travelled to England aboard the S.S. Metagama, skilled at Bramshott Camp, and endured a number of sicknesses, together with influenza and bronchitis. Every time, he returned to responsibility. By early 1917, he was transferred to the 1st Canadian Infantry Battalion, a front-line unit with years of arduous preventing behind it — Ypres, the Somme, Vimy Ridge.
In the course of the summer season of 1917, the Canadian Corps ready for the assault on Hill 70, a strategic excessive floor overlooking Lens, France. The operation was deliberate by Lieutenant-Normal Arthur Currie, who anticipated the Germans to mount heavy counterattacks. He was proper. The battle, which started on August 15, 1917, was brutal. Canadian troopers superior by means of smoke and heavy shelling; German forces countered with artillery, machine-gun hearth, and fuel.
On 20 August 1917, in the midst of these counterattacks, Non-public Hasan Amat was killed in motion.
His physique was by no means recovered. His identify is carved on the Vimy Memorial, alongside greater than 11,000 Canadians who haven’t any recognized grave. There isn’t any report that his household in Singapore ever realized what occurred to him. The official notification was despatched as an alternative to his good friend in Nova Scotia — the identical man he had named as beneficiary in each his wills.
Hasan Amat’s identify because it seems on the Canadian Nationwide Vimy Memorial, Pas-de-Calais, France
Why does this story matter now?
For me, as a younger Canadian Muslim and a Warrant Officer with the 337 Queen’s York Rangers Military Cadets, discovering Amat’s life modified how I understood my nation — and my place in it. Till then, I had by no means imagined that somebody who shared my religion had stood in Canadian uniform greater than a century in the past. To be taught that not solely had a Muslim soldier served in 1916, however had died preventing for Canada, made me really feel seen in a brand new approach.
It additionally modified how I considered Canadian historical past. Non-public Amat’s life exhibits that the CEF was by no means as uniform as we imagined. It included troopers from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, the Center East in addition to Indigenous troopers. It included folks whose names, faces, and tales don’t seem in most textbooks. Canada’s story is wider and extra international than many people be taught at school.
Recovering tales like Amat’s issues as a result of it makes our remembrance extra correct. It brings again voices that have been misplaced. And it exhibits each Canadian — significantly these from minority communities — that this nation has all the time been formed by folks from many cultures.
Telling Non-public Hasan Amat’s story is a small step towards making that reminiscence complete.
Sources and Additional Studying
Canadian Struggle Museum. “Canada and the First World Struggle.” https://www.warmuseum.ca/firstworldwar/.
Commonwealth Struggle Graves Fee. “Discover Struggle Useless.” https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/. (Database of 1.7 million Commonwealth battle useless from each World Wars, consists of Canadian casualties and Vimy Memorial data)
Prepare dinner, Tim. Shock Troops: Canadians Preventing the Nice Struggle, 1917–1918. Toronto: Viking Canada, 2008. (Gives extra context for Hill 70)
Library and Archives Canada. “Personnel Data of the First World Struggle.” Database. https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/uncover/military-heritage/first-world-war/personnel-records/Pages/checklist.aspx. (Searchable database of roughly 622,000 digitized Canadian Expeditionary Drive service information)
Veterans Affairs Canada. “The Canadian Digital Struggle Memorial.” https://www.veterans.gc.ca/en/remembrance/memorials/canadian-virtual-war-memorial. (Registry of over 118,000 Canadians and Newfoundlanders who died in service since Confederation)
Warrant Officer Daniyal Elahi is a senior Military Cadet with the 337 Queen’s York Rangers and a youth historian engaged on Our Shared Sacrifice, a public historical past venture devoted to uncovering missed Canadian troopers. He’s captivated with inclusive remembrance and the variety of Canada’s navy previous.
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