Company Sergeant Major (Warrant Officer 2nd Class) Joseph Evan Thomas, DCM and Bar, Regimental No. 55723

LCol (ret) Tom Compton, CD, BA
Director, Argyll Regimental Museum & Archives

Joseph Thomas was born in Birkenhead, England, to Joseph and Mary (née Bywater) Thomas, on 2 April, 1892. By 19 years of age, in 1911, he is listed as a boiler maker’s apprentice. Joseph soon emigrated to Canada, arriving in Quebec in 1913. A year later, war had broken out and he quickly enlisted in Toronto with the 19th Battalion. Joseph was measured as standing 5 feet, 7 inches with a dark complexion and brown hair. Pte Thomas returned to England with the rest of the 19th Battalion a month later, on 13 May. Pte Thomas possibly wanted to return to Birkenhead to see his family when he was Absent Without Leave (AWL) from Shorncliffe Camp, resulting in the forfeiture of one day’s pay. Six months later, Pte Thomas was AWL again, resulting in the forfeiture of three days’ pay and the awarding of seven days’ Field Punishment Number 2.

Field Punishment Number 1 would see a soldier shackled to a post or wagon wheel up to two hours a day, while Field Punishment Number 2 saw the soldier shackled but not to a fixed object. He could be given two hours of heavy exercise/drill or confined in close custody.¹

Pte Thomas embarked for France with the unit in September 1915 and remained with the unit through the rest of the war. Thomas’s service is marked by the remarkable rise in rank during 1917–18, seeing him appointed acting Corporal with pay in March; Corporal in May; Sergeant in September; and finally Company Sergeant Major (WO2) in April 1918. This meteoric rise was no doubt influenced by the casualties suffered by the 19th during this period, but he was clearly seen as an effective NCO. Thomas remained unscathed throughout, that is to say, until the attack on Marcelcave, 8 August 1918, when he received a “slight wound” yet remained on duty.

It is at Marcelcave where he is first recognized for his remarkable bravery, being awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM), second highest to the Victoria Cross:

For conspicuous gallantry at Marcelcave on 8th August, 1918. Seeing the advance held up by an enemy post of three machine guns, he at once gathered together all the men he could, organised and led them in a successful charge against this point, and killed or captured the whole of the garrison. By his quick grasp of the situation and his power of leadership, he saved a serious hold up in the attack. His coolness and initiative throughout was magnificent, and he was of the greatest assistance to his commander throughout the operation. – London Gazette 31128, dated 16 January 1919.

Eight days later, CSM Thomas is in action again and subsequently awarded a Bar to the DCM:

For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. When his Company Commander was wounded during operations at Fransart on 16th August 1918, he at once took charge of the H.Q. Section. On reaching the objective he made a reconnaissance of the Corps’ position and finding that the right flank was in the air he volunteered to return and bring reinforcements. He accomplished this successfully despite persistent enemy sniping and machine gun fire. During the action he captured twenty-four prisoners and at all times set a fine example to his men. London Gazette, dated 16 January 1919.

Fred Stitt was a soldier in the 19th Battalion and was interviewed years after the war, remembering the heroism of CSM Thomas:

Let me tell you a little incident … [at] Fransart. These little dog fights, you know, could lead to some really interesting stuff. We had [in] our company [a] Sgt. Major in C Company of the 19th Battalion, by the name of Joe Thomas, a fellow from Sault Ste Marie. He wasn’t very big, he was only about 5 foot 6 but was a real Sgt. Major. He carried a 45 revolver which was as big as himself almost, you know. Away goes C Company along with the rest of us to the Fransart affair. They hadn’t gone very far until they had lost every darn one of their officers, everyone of them hit, which left Joe in command of the company. Well Joe didn’t know this of course, he didn’t know that he’d lost his officers, because it was spread over a huge area.… But Joe was in command whether he knew it or not and he kept on belting toward Fransart. He finally jumps into a German trench at Fransart, and they were in Fransart Village. Oh, there must have been 14 or 15 Germans in it, and he just waved his gat at them and they all surrendered, and … with the other hand he’s bringing his men forward, you see – “Come on, men” – and he turns around and looks and the closest man is 100 yards away. In other words, Joe is there with 15 Heinies with a gat, but he gets them and his men eventually reach there and he establishes his company in that trench, fixes it up for defence if necessary and then decides to load his gat again. So he brings his gat over and there’s nothing in it but blanks. He had used the loading on the way over and hadn’t kept track of it, so he jumped into that confounded mob of Germans with an empty gat.²

CSM Thomas’s records show he was transferred to Shorncliffe Camp on 1 November 1918, but there is no explanation as to why. Perhaps the senior officers of the 19th felt he’d done enough as a soldier and they moved him out of the line to save him from the final push. We don’t have any solid evidence, but he was indeed saved from the final action at Hyon that took too many lives on the last full day of hostilities. Thomas remained in a series of holding units in Camp Shorncliffe during which time he married Mary Ellen Taylor, 26 years of age, in Birkenhead, England, on 9 January 1919. By 23 June, he is shipped back to Canada and finally demobilized on 4 July 1919. Mary Thomas appears to emigrate to Canada at about the same time and the newly married couple settle in Sault Ste Marie, Ontario, where Joseph finds employment as an electrician. Mary and Joseph had a daughter, Mary Kathleen Thomas, on 27 June, 1920. Joseph Evan Thomas died on 28 February 1954 in Sault Ste Marie, aged 61 years. He is buried there in Greenwood Cemetery.

Image 1. From Marcelcave, in the upper left to Fransart, lower right. CSM Thomas won a DCM at each action just eight days apart. Map courtesy of Dr. Mike Bechtold.

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1 Tim Cook, Shock Troops: Canadians Fighting the Great War, 1917–1918, vol. 2 (Penguin: 2008), p. 249.

2 David Campbell, It Can’t Last Forever: The 19th Battalion and the Canadian Corps in the First World War (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2017).

Image 2. A Distinguished Conduct Medal similar to that awarded to CSM Thomas for the action at Marcelcave. Source: Wikipedia.

Image 3. A Bar to the DCM, similar to that awarded to CSM Thomas for his actions at Fransart, identifying the subsequent awarding of a second DCM. Source: Wikipedia.