Private Lyman Metcalf Nicholls   

#746217, Signaller

Lyman Nicholls was born in Uxbridge on June 11, 1899, to Caro and Thomas Nicholls. Growing up in Uxbridge, he attended Uxbridge Public and Uxbridge High Schools.

From his time at Uxbridge Public School he recalled that one July day in 1910 he and a pal were playing on the public school grounds when the caretaker ran out yelling , “Fire! Fire! The school’s on fire!” He sent the boys to go ring the fire bell located in the tower by the Uxbridge Library library. The volunteers arrived quickly but couldn’t save the building, and Lyman watched it burn to the ground. That fall the students were housed in different churches and the new school opened in 1911. 

Lyman enlisted for service in the Canadian Expeditionary Force in Uxbridge on November 8, 1915, after lying about his age. At the time he was a student at Uxbridge Secondary School and he was only 16! His parents conceded that he could enlist after Lyman pleaded with them that he should serve with other Uxbridge lads and under Lt. Col. Sam Sharpe. He enlisted with the local battalion, the 116th C.E.F, and as a Private, he was paid $20 per month.

He sailed with the 116th from Halifax on the SS Olympic on July 23, 1916, arriving in Liverpool 8 days later. Their route was scheduled to travel around the north of Ireland, but the captain was alerted that a German submarine was lurking there, so he diverted south and passed through the Irish Sea.

After safely landed in Liverpool, Lyman recalled: “I watched them unload the artillery pieces, and then the horses after we were tied up at the dock.”

The 116th were transferred to Witley Camp in Surrey, near Guildford on November 3, 1916. After additional training, the 116th deployed to France the following February.

Pte. Nicholls’ first trip to the front lines was in early April as part of the Battle of Vimy Ridge. Lyman recalled “…on the 9th of April 1917, at Vimy Ridge, the Canadians captured the Ridge, and that was where I saw my first dead Germans and dead Canadians, and that was the beginning of my active service experiences.” He was only 17.

A signaller by training, Lyman was one of the men responsible for maintaining vital communication lines between the front line trenches and battalion headquarters; a job that was as dangerous as it was critical. At Passchendaele, Lyman was pressed into service in a stretcher party. The small group of men had to venture into no-man’s-land to retrieve the wounded soldiers.

“So, we walked single file up these duck boards and saw two pillboxes in front of us and our duckboards led to the pillbox on the left which was being used as a Canadian dressing station, although it really was right on the front lines. The pillbox on the right was still occupied by the Germans and I held that little white flag up as high as I could.” Two machine guns protruded from that pillbox, aimed directly at them.

They had to bring four wounded Canadians back on the stretchers, along with a young German prisoner, who could walk. The medical officer told them that the previous day the stretcher party had been killed by the Germans in the other pillbox. Again Pte. Nicholls held his white flag up high. The prisoner was struck by shrapnel from a nearby exploding shell, but that day they were all able to safely get back behind the lines. Soon after this adventure Pte. Nicholls was awarded the Good Conduct Badge (Dec. 20, 1917). 

By the time the 116th Battalion reached Cambrai in October 1918, its ranks had been so depleted by months of fighting that even the band members and signallers were called upon to join the infantry in the advance — to “go over the top.” Those who had once served in support roles now found themselves fighting alongside their comrades on the front lines.

“We heard this shell coming and knew it would land quite close and we all dived into a shell hole. … after I regained consciousness, my face felt kind of warm and I rubbed [it] with my fingers and they were all blood.” I was wounded in the shoulder, but most of the blood on me was from my comrades. Wounded but able to walk they made their way back …”and we came to a house, a French house, with a Red Cross flag flying and we went in there to have our wounds dressed. The only one in there was a German doctor who had been taken prisoner and he gave all of us first aid and then motioned for us to continue walking back.”

Pte. Nicholls was one of the soldiers put on a stretcher to be evacuated. “I was taken the nearest place on the railroad where the ambulance train could get, in an ambulance driven by an English girl who wasn’t much older than I  was. I was taken from there by train to the Canadian Base Hospital at Etaples and was in that hospital when the Armistice was signed on November 11th.” 

Lyman was only 19 when he was discharged on March 19, 1919 and returned to Uxbridge. He arrived on April 1 - an April Fool’s surprise!

The first thing he did was return to school in order to complete the requirements for his high school diploma. Even though he felt a little silly that he was so much older than the rest of the students, but he knew the importance of receiving his diploma.

When he returned, Lyman also took over his father’s three bee hives. His father had intended to develop the business, and “had rented five acres [of farmland] to go into it more extensively.” Lyman grew the business to 75 hives and built a small extractor house to process the honey.

“After I sold the white honey there would be the dark honey because a lot of farmers had fields of buckwheat. I used to gather a big crop of dark honey which I could sell in Quebec because they used dark honey more. I would ship it there, a ton or a ton-and-a-half at a time.”  

The Canadian civil service had a policy whereby returned service personnel were given preference to fill the vacancy of any government position if they were a suitable candidate. In January 1929 Uxbridge’s Postmaster, William Hamilton died of a heart attack. Lyman applied for the job, and served as Postmaster from June 1, 1929, until he retired June 1, 1964, the day before his 65th birthday.

One memorable event happened soon after air mail service started. “It was interesting to see airmail letters arrive and look at the postmark to see when they were posted in the different countries. I noticed a letter from England [with] that same date – it had been posted in England that morning. After I closed the office, I took that letter with me and delivered it to the addressee in Uxbridge. I explained that it had been posted in England that morning and she was able to read it that same day!” 

Lyman’s family was always impressed with his dedication at getting mail out to people. The train would deliver mail often after the post office closed. If parcels arrived Christmas Eve for the St. John's Boys' School, he would make certain those boys had their presents on time for Christmas and would personally deliver them to the school.

We Will Remember Lyman Nicholls.