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Acting Corporal Filip Konowal
47th Battalion, CEF
For the action at Hill 70 from August 22nd to 24th, 1917.
"For most conspicuous bravery an leadership when in charge of
a section attack. His section had the difficult task of mopping up
cellars, craters and machine gun emplacements. Under his able direction
all resistance was overcome successfully, and heavy casualties inflicted
upon the enemy. In one cellar he himself bayoneted three enemy and
attacked single-handed seven others in a crater, killing them all.
On reaching the objective, a machine gun was holding up the right flank,
causing many casualties. Cpl. Konowal rushed forward and entered the
emplacement, killing the crew, and brought the gun back to our lines.
The next day he again attacked single-handed another machine gun
emplacement, killing three of the crew, and destroying the gun and
emplacement with explosives.
This non commissioned officer alone killed at least sixteen of the
enemy, during the two days of actual fighting, carried on continuously
his good work until severely wounded."
Cpl Konowal signed up with the 77th Battalion in 1915. Within a few
months he was in France and sent to reinforce the 47th (British
Columbia) Battalion.
After being hospitalized in England, Konowal was assigned as an
assistant to the military attache of the Russian Embassy in London. He
was later transferred to the 1st Canadian Reserve Battalion, served with
the Canadian Forestry Corps and eventually with the Canadian Siberian
Expeditionary Force. He returned to Vancouver, British Columbia on 20
June 1919.
Honourably discharged, Konowal was plagued by medical and other
problems, which were thought to be a result of his war wounds. In 1928,
he began to rebuild his life. Then living in Ottawa, he was befriended
by another Victoria Cross winner, Maj Milton Fowler Gregg, who was a
company commander with the Foot Guards. Maj Gregg convinced the Regiment
to hire Konowal, and also secured a job for him as a junior caretaker in
the House of Commons. Prime Minister William Lyon MacKenzie King spotted
Konowal washing the floors of the Parliament Buildings and had him
reassigned to Room No. 16, the Prime Minister's Office (now the
Speaker's Reception Room).
In 1956 the Ottawa Citizen, interviewed Sgt Konowal, and when asked
about being a janitor he replied, "I mopped up overseas with a
rifle, and here I must mop up with a mop." He also revealed that
the real reason of how he won the Victoria Cross which was not part of
the official record:
"I was so fed up standing in the trench with water to my waist
that I said the hell with it and started after the German army. My
Captain tried to shoot me because he figured I was deserting."
Konowal died in Ottawa on 3 June 1959 and was buried in Notre Dame
Cemetery on Ottawa's Montreal Road with his name misspelled and his
heroic actions forgotten. On 15 July 1996, the war hero was honoured
with a new headstone, bearing a carved replica of the Victoria Cross and
his name correctly spelled. On the same day, a commemorative bronze
plaque was unveiled at Cartier Square Drill Hall, with the inscriptions
in Ukrainian, English, and French. The honourable David Collenette,
Minister of National Defence, delivered the keynote speech with the
Governor General's Foot Guards and the Band of the Ceremonial Guard
providing a Guard of Honour. Konowal was also honoured in Toronto, and
in New Westminster BC, the home of the 47th Battalion and later in his
home town of Kudkiv in Ukraine.
For more information visit: www.infoukes.com/history/konowal/index.html |
