During the First World War, R.C. MacGillivray gained a reputation for bravery. Although he was not expected, as a Chaplain, to go "over the top," he did so on several occasions.
A contemporary recorded one such incident. MacGillivray found himself huddled with a group of his men in an artillery crater:
"An enemy field battery a few hundred yards away was firing over open sights. Grasping the situation, Father MacGillivray called out, ‘Boys, we may as well die fighting.’ He leaped from the shell hole and rushed the battery, followed by his brave boys. The boys say he terrified the Huns as with a wild war-whoop and brandishing his cane, he landed in their midst. The rest of the story is short, as all hands went up with the cry of ‘Kamerad.’ The prisoners were numbered off and the guns were marked, ‘Captured by the 26th Battalion.’ Some wag remarked it should have been, ‘Captured by Canadian Chaplain Service.’”
The fact that the German surrender may have been facilitated in part by the arrival of Allied tanks on the scene is only partly relevant; MacGillivray’s reputation was sealed less so by the surrender of the German battery than by his bravery and leadership.
