Like many teenagers, Bill Harrison was determined to fight in the First World War, even if it meant lying about his age. But the brave young man ended up leaving the war with a bullet in his brain.
U.K.-born Harrison, who came to Canada as a child, signed up for the British Territorial army at age 15 -- despite the age 18 cut-off. Fighting for the British, he didn't last long enough to see the Canadians take on the Germans in the April, 9, 1917 Battle of Vimy Ridge.
Harrison recounted his tale 65 years after later, in an interview with CTV that has been re-published online ahead of the 100th anniversary of victory.
According to Harrison, one day the British Territorial army had attempted to advance at Vimy but an officer eventually ordered the troops to retreat.
The teenaged Harrison refused. "Did we come over here to fight or did we come here to run away?" he recalled telling the officer, in the 1982 interview.
"You take your bloody orders from me," the officer replied, according to Harrison.
Harrison didn't listen. Not long after that, he was hit by a bullet in the back of his head. "I went down and didn't know a damn thing afterwards," he said.
A nurse from the Victorian Order told him, "You're only a boy; you shouldn't be here now," he added. Harrison was soon shipped back to Canada with a bullet permanently lodged in his brain. The bullet was the reason, he said, that he still wore long "hippie" hair at age 85.
More than 10,500 Canadians were wounded or killed in the battle. Harrison went on to serve in the Second World War, and was a fixture at the Royal Canadian Legion in Toronto. He died on Sept. 15, 1986, according to a Toronto Star obituary.
Be sure to watch the full eight-minute interview from 1982, in which Harrison also discussed rum rations, mustard gas and how the newly formed Canadians Corps achieved what the British could not – wresting Vimy from the Germans.
