Nova Scotia/Nunavut Command of The Royal Canadian Legion www.ns.legion.ca 63 In England, the War Office would not allow the battalion to go to France with so few men. The solution was to reform the battalion as a labour company of 500 officers and men, renamed No. 2 Canadian Construction Company. The rest of the battalion remained in England to serve as reinforcements. The Canadian Forestry Corps urgently needed labour to support its forestry operations in the Jura Mountains in southeast France. No. 2 Canadian Construction Company arrived there early on 21 May 1917 and immediately began operations. continued ... No. 2 Construction Company performed a large number of supporting tasks. These included improving the existing logging roads in the La Joux Forest and helping build a logging railway. The company also operated and maintained the system that provided water to all the camps, as well as the electrical system when it came online. In addition, they transported the finished lumber products to the railway station, where they loaded them into railway cars. In performing these tasks, the lumberjacks of the Forestry Corps companies were freed to cut and mill trees. No. 2 Construction Company was also involved in all phases of the lumber process, helping saw down trees and move and mill the logs. Lumber was essential for the war effort. It was used for revetting the sides of trenches and for duckboards for the bottom of trenches or across muddy terrain. It was also used for artillery gun platforms, railway ties, ammunition boxes, accommodation huts and bridges. The work of No. 2 Construction Company allowed the mills to produce more than twice as much lumber as mills that did not have this support. In November 1917, a group of 50 men from the company were sent to No. 37 Company at Péronne, France; there they helped build a road used to move supplies to the front. They then continued to support lumber operations. Another group of 180 men was sent to northwest France, near Alençon to support the companies of No. 1 District, Canadian Forestry Corps. They were sent there in the mistaken belief that Black men of No. 2 Construction Company from the Caribbean and the United States could not handle the cold of the Jura Mountains. continued ... No. 2 Construction Battalion The soldiers of No. 2 Construction Battalion lived in tents from their arrival in France in May 1917 until wooden huts were ready to occupy in October. (Courtesy Lt-Col DH Sutherland Collection, River John, Nova Scotia)
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