5th Field Company Engineers

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5th Field Company Engineers

n.d.

The Fifth Field Company Canadian Engineers was a Queen's University company that spent the years preceeding the war becoming a well-qualified military unit. By 1914, total enrolment in the Fifth was 160 men. The activities of the Company included not only rifle and infantry drill, but also signals training and bridge and fortification construction. With the start of World War One the training of the Fifth during the previous four years permitted a quick response to the national emergency. The first need created by the war, a camp for Canadian soldiers who were to be sent overseas, demanded a very real response from Queen’s.
The Fifth Field Company was given the task of turning previously unimproved ground at Valcartier, Quebec, into a camp capable of mobilizing 30,000 men. Only ten days after the initial inquiry, mobilization orders were telegraphed to all members of the Company and the majority of the men left Kingston for Valcartier on August 18, 1914. In all 170 Queen’s men worked at Valcartier on a variety of jobs that included road repair, surveys for tent sites, and installation of a water supply system.

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