Battles of the First World War Podcast · Mike Cunha

Montreal to Courcelette via Paardeberg, a Discussion with Michel Gravel

·52 min·3 clips

John Stevenson Youngson was hit by two machine-gun bullets at Courcelette and still went on with the story.

Michel Gravel returns to the show with a collector's eye and a deep appetite for World War I history. The conversation starts with the trail that led him to John Stevenson Youngson, not through a lecture hall but through a medal on a table. Gravel, a French-Canadian raised in Ontario who has worked in construction sales since before 1995, brings the patient energy of someone who has been chasing the war for decades. He says the chase began almost by accident in 1984, when a trip to the Somme at age sixteen led him into cemeteries and into a lifelong interest. He has also written several World War I books in French, published in France. He says he has a museum in his flat, with a Black Watch display that keeps him close to the unit's paper trail. A vendor brought him a Queen South Africa medal, a 1915 star, and a Great War ID tag for the 42nd Battalion. That name turned the object into a question. From there, he explains how medals can open into a whole research project, because once you own the object you want the battle, the unit, and the person behind it. He notes that medal collecting changes after 1935, when the Second World War stops medals from being unnamed in the same way. Provenance matters. A medal with a family story is far more compelling than a pile of anonymous decorations. The talk then turns to the Canadian Black Watch and why the regiment matters. Gravel explains that Canada entered the war very early, in August 1914, and that the Black Watch was one of the militia regiments that sent over full battalions rather than a smaller draft. He walks through the first contingent and the 13th Battalion. Then he goes into the second Black Watch regiment authorized in early 1915 and named the 42nd. The choice was deliberate, because the Scottish Black Watch had traditionally been the 42nd Regiment of Foot. He also describes the third battalion, the 73rd Canadians, and the old British regimental amalgamation that produced the Black Watch lineage. The numbering can feel like a knot. Gravel does not hide that. He keeps translating the military machinery into something a listener can hold onto, even while the unit history gets dense. The interview stays warm and informal, with the host letting Gravel work through the details at his own pace. By the end, Gravel is still researching Youngson, still wanting to walk more of the ground, and still convinced the man could fill a book.

As heard by us

A medal and an ID tag open a clear Black Watch story built on evidence.

Michel Gravel starts with a medal, an ID tag, and one named soldier, and the episode keeps its footing by following the objects instead of reaching for grand claims. It moves through the Black Watch story and the Canada-Scotland regimental links with a collector's patience.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

A medal hunt that opens into Black Watch regimental history.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Battles of the First World War Podcast