"Funeral of Major Rod Bell-Irving (16th Battalion).17 October, 1918 near Canal du Nord by the Hindenburg Line. He was 2i/c of the 16th Battalion, CEF. This Colour tinted enlargement of the original black and white photo (DND O.3443) is in Officer's Mess [Copy attached]. Rod Bell-Irving was one of the original officers of the 72nd Regiment, Seaforth Highlanders of Canada. Lt. Col John Jenkins Penhale, DSO, Royal Canadian Artillery of the 1st Division is possibly in the reviewing stand. CEF Service file, Commonwealth War Graves Commission and London/Edinburgh Gazette citations attached. BELL-IRVING, RODERICK OGLE, clerk and army officer; b. 15 Jan. 1891 in Vancouver, third son of Henry Ogle Bell-Irving* and Maria Isabella del Carmen Beattie; m. 9 Dec. 1916 Nora Angela Benwell in London, England; they had no children; d. 1 Oct. 1918 near Cuvillers, France. Born in Scotland, Roderick Ogle Bell-Irving’s father settled in Vancouver in 1885 and eventually became prominent as a shipping agent, merchant, and salmon canner. Aside from his business interests, he promoted the formation in 1910 of the 72nd Regiment (Highlanders) and took steps to ensure that his children remembered their Scottish background. Roderick was educated at the Loretto School near Musselburgh, Scotland. It was natural, perhaps, that after a year in the ranks of the 6th Regiment (Duke of Connaught’s Own Rifles) in Vancouver, he should be among the original group of officers recruited in 1911 for the 72nd Highlanders (named the Seaforth Highlanders the next year). Following the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, Bell-Irving, then a clerk with the shipping and importing firm of Balfour, Guthrie and Company, was part of the contingent of Seaforths who left Vancouver to join the Canadian Expeditionary Force being assembled at Valcartier, Quebec. On 23 September he was taken on strength there as a lieutenant in the newly formed 16th Infantry Battalion (The Canadian Scottish), which went to England the next month. Before the conflict would end, all of Henry Bell-Irving’s six sons were in the armed forces and two of his four daughters served as nurses. The 16th crossed over to France in February 1915, but “much against his will” Roderick Bell-Irving was retained at training depots in England until late April. He had been promoted temporary captain on 23 April [1915], following the desperate fighting and heavy casualties of the Germans’ first gas attack at Ypres (Ieper), Belgium. A year later, in June 1916, Bell-Irving participated with distinction in the battle of Mount Sorrel. When his company was held up at Armagh Wood by enemy machine-gun fire, he found a covered approach to the emplacement. His revolver plugged with mud, he bayoneted three of the machine-gunners and was struggling with the fourth when help arrived. He pushed on with his men to secure his objective, ultimately taking command of both attacking companies of the 16th before the battle ended. Awarded the Military Cross for this action, he had also advanced within the battalion command. He was appointed temporary major on 10 June, while in charge of a company, and acting major on 1 July; this rank would be confirmed on 15 November. On leave in England from October 1916, Bell-Irving took a course at Aldershot and in December he married Nora Benwell, who had come from Vancouver. Following a brief honeymoon, he rejoined his battalion and was appointed second in command in January 1917. In April-June 1917 he first assumed full command, with the rank of acting lieutenant-colonel, when Lieutenant-Colonel Cyrus Wesley Peck was absent. The 16th took part in the hard-fought battle for Hill 70 in August and later in the Battle of Passchendaele. While on the Arras front in France in the spring of 1918, Bell-Irving was mentioned in dispatches. He was in command of the battalion during its last major engagement of the war. Late in September 1918 the Canadian Corps had burst through the German defences on the Canal du Nord, west of Cambrai, but it encountered increasing opposition as it attempted to encircle Cambrai. On 30 September, Bell-Irving received orders to capture the ground from Sancourt to Cuvillers. The 16th Battalion attacked at 5:00 a.m. on 1 October and took Cuvillers. Bell-Irving, who had been following close behind the leading companies, went ahead to join the men who were exploiting beyond this village. He had scarcely left when the Germans counter-attacked and he was killed. Recovered some days later, his body was buried on 17 October in the British cemetery at Eterpigny, between Cambrai and Arras. Known familiarly as "B.I." and to his family as "Rog", Roderick Bell-Irving had been a first-rate soldier. According to fellow officer and battalion historian Hugh MacIntyre Urquhart, “What he thought he said; what he felt, he fought for, and expected others to do the same.” In time, he “grew to appreciate, as did all front line men, the genuine worth of his comrades, their devotion and bravery in times of peril. . . . He would do anything and everything for the men.” In 1919 he was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Order. His five brothers survived the war, Alan Duncan, Malcolm McBean, and Richard having achieved distinction in the Royal Flying Corps. The Battle of Canal du Nord was part of a general Allied offensive against German positions on the Western Front during the Hundred Days Offensive of World War I. The battle took place in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region of France, along an incomplete portion of the Canal du Nord and on the outskirts of Cambrai between 27 September and 1 October 1918. To avoid the risk of having extensive German reserves massed against a single Allied attack, the assault along the Canal du Nord was undertaken as part of a number of closely sequenced Allied attacks at separate points along the Western Front. It began one day after the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, one day before an offensive in the Flanders region of Belgium and two days before the Battle of St. Quentin Canal. The assault position was directly along the inter-army boundary between the British First Army and Third Army. Both armies were tasked with continuing the advance started with the Battle of the Drocourt-Quéant Line, Battle of Havrincourt and Battle of Epehy. The British First Army was operating in a framework whereby its main task was to lead the crossing of the Canal du Nord and secure the northern flank of the British Third Army as both advanced towards Cambrai. The British Third Army was additionally tasked with securing the Escaut (Scheldt) Canal so as to be in a position to support the British Fourth Army during the Battle of St. Quentin Canal. ETERPIGNY BRITISH CEMETERY Eterpigny is a village in the Department of the Pas-de-Calais. The Eterpigny British Cemetery was begun by the 4th and 1st Divisions and was used from the end of August 1918, to the middle of October, 1918. One grave was brought in after the Armistice. The cemetery contains 66 burials and commemorations of the First World War. Ten of the burials are unidentified but there is a special memorial to one casualty believed to be buried among them.