James Robert Johnston

James Robert Johnston (1898-1976) grew up on a farm at Notre Dame, New Brunswick. Knowing nothing about the army, he enlisted in April 1916, when he was 18, and was posted to the transport section of the Canadian machine gun corps. Johnston served at Vimy, at Hill 70, Lens, Ypres, Valenciennes, and other places, and finally at Passchendaele. He was gassed, watched Billy Bishop give a flying demonstration, and saw the bodies of 200 young soldiers in a neat line, killed to a man as they went “over the top.” By chance, Johnston arrived in London on leave on November 11, 1918. After the war, back home in Moncton, Johnston spent most of his postwar career working for the Canadian National Railway and as an independent surveyor. In 1964, he toured the battlefields he remembered so vividly. The memoir he wrote during that tour has become Riding into War, his unique tribute to the dependence and affection between men and horses, heroic partners in the War to End All Wars.