C.A. Bell

Charles Austin Bell (1891–1967), a mining engineer from Toronto and a graduate of the School of Practical Science there, with several years in the Engineer militia before the war. He enlisted in 1914, rose to sergeant-major, and was commissioned in the spring of 1916; he served with the 2nd and then, from July 1917, the 3rd Field Company, Canadian Engineers, and later the 3rd Battalion, C.E., ending the war a major with the Military Cross and Bar.

In the diary he is only "Bell." He is in the New Year 1917 list of Military Crosses (January 3), alongside Binns and other Engineer officers; that February he and Birkett are warned they would lose seniority if sent to England for instructional work; and on April 9, 1917 he watches the opening of the Vimy attack from a forward position with Robertson and Langford. On August 8, 1918, the first morning of the Battle of Amiens, Robertson notes that "Bell got badly hit early in the show": the Canadian Great War Project's compilation of his service record shows his rank period ending that same day. He recovered and lived until 1967.

The seniority list Robertson kept records him as "Bell, C.A., M.C.," seniority 12 March 1916. A separate, senior "Col. Bell," down from Canadian Corps headquarters, appears twice in July 1917 and is a different, unidentified man. An untitled "Bell" at tea in May 1918, and a "Bell's H.Q." visited during trench-mining in December 1916, may be Charles Austin Bell but cannot be confirmed, and are left unlinked.