BX October 6, 1916
Mrs. Elizabeth Butler, 58 Park Avenue, has received official notice that her son, Private Lee Butler, is officially reported to be in the Royal Victoria Hospital, Netley, with a gunshot wound in the side, which resulted in a fracture.
Private Butler left here with the 36th Battalion, being transferred to the Highlanders for active service. He had been at the front for over a year. He was a member of the Dufferin Rifles before enlistment.
BX October 10, 1916
Officially Reported
In yesterday’s casualty lists five Brantford names appeared, but all their casualties had been announced before in the Expositor, the news having come to relatives. The names in the list are Pte. Edward Kane, Pte. Lee Butler, Pte. George Caswell, Pte. Richard Gilbert and Sergeant Albert Speechly killed in action.
BX October 13, 1916
Further particulars of the wounding of Private Lee Butler have been received by his mother, Mrs. M.H. Butler, of 58 Park Avenue. He has a wound through his left thigh caused by shrapnel, and his leg was broken above the knee. He is now in the No. 1 Australian General Hospital.
BX March 15, 1917
Pte. Lee Butler, A Hero of Courcelette, Arrives Home – Received Wound in the Thigh Necessitating Removal of Left Leg
To be carried back from a trench, into which he had crawled after being wounded, by four Germans who had that day been taken prisoner, was the experience of Pte. Lee Butler, son of Mr. and Mrs. M.H. Butler, of 58 Park Avenue, who arrived back in the city last evening, minus his left leg.
It was while making a charge at Courcelette, in the Somme sector, on September 26, that Pte. Butler received the wound in the back of his left thigh which later necessitated the removal of his leg. Knocked out by the shell, to escape further wounding from the shells which were most plentiful, a painful crawl was made by Butler to a German trench about 10 feet away, which had just been captured. It was nearly six feet deep, but he plunged in head first, preferring to take the chance of breaking his neck to being shot again.
So narrow was the trench into which he fell that when he was discovered he had to be dug out. The trench was the second line trench of the Germans, and in this particular charge the Canadians were ordered to take three trenches. “They took them all,” he remarked to a reporter, “but I only got to the second one.” After he was dug out and placed on a stretcher four Germans under a guard carried him back about a mile to where a horse tramway was in operation.
He was first taken to Albert and then to Rouen. After two days spent at Rouen he was sent over to England and was for four months in the Royal Victoria hospital at Netley. He was taken to the hospital on Sept. 30 and despite a hard fight to save his leg it was amputated on Nov. 11.
Prior to enlisting Private Butler was employed on the G.T.R. He went overseas with the 36th Battalion under Col. Ashton and shortly after reaching England left with 26 other men to join the 48th Highlanders to go across to France. This was, he says, the first split in Col. Ashton’s battalion.
He was through the third battle of Ypres, which lasted for ten days. The worst part of it was the beginning, when the Germans broke through the front lines. From here he was sent to the Somme region. Here charges were made every day, but in the first charge in which he participated he met his Waterloo.
It was on the steamer Essequibo that Pte. Butler sailed from England with between 500 and 600 wounded men, three of whom had both legs off, while there were a number of stretcher cases.As to conditions at the front, Pte. Butler said they were good. The spirit of the boys was excellent and they got lots to eat. The trenches were poor in the Somme sector, however, nothing but shell holes being seen.
Pte. Butler was rejected three times before he was finally accepted for overseas. Another brother has also been rejected several times. He is now home for two weeks and will then be sent to Whitby to have another operation. He will later be fitted with a cork leg.
