What is Legion Work?  
Konowal Would Have Asked


By Lubomyr Luciuk

We should not romanticize Filip Konowal’s life. It was often hard, even brutal. An immigrant to Canada, in 1913, he left a wife and daughter at home. He would never see either again. His wife, Anna, starved during the Great Famine of 1932-1933 in Soviet Ukraine. Their daughter, Maria, was trapped, forever, behind the Iron Curtain.
Konowal began working in British Columbia’s forestry industry and later moved to the Ottawa Valley. When war broke out he volunteered. Luckily, he had been born east of the river Zbruch, so he was a citizen of the Russian Empire, an ally, instead of an “enemy alien” from Austro-Hungarian lands. He enlisted in the army, on July 12, 1915. Meanwhile, thousands of his fellow Ukrainians were interned, forced to do heavy labour in Canadian concentration camps because of who they were, where they came from.
Transported overseas with the 77th battalion, he embarked for France, on August 31, 1916, a Lance Corporal reassigned to the 47th Battalion. Severe diarrhea kept him out of the fighting through February and March 1917 but he was back for Vimy Ridge. His luck held until August 23, when he was wounded and transported to a hospital in England.
Just before he was shot, Konowal became a Canadian hero. His valour during the Battle for Hill 70 earned him the highest military distinction of the British Empire, the Victoria Cross, presented by His Majesty King George V.
The November 23, 1917 issue of the London Gazette recorded why No. 144039 was so deserving: “For most conspicuous bravery and leadership in charge of a section in 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 on 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, killed the crew, and brought the gun back to our lines. The next day he again attacked single-handed another machine-gun emplacement, killed three of the crew, and destroyed the gun and emplacement with explosives. This non-Commissioned Offer alone killed at least 16 of the enemy, and during the two days’ actual fighting carried on continuously his good work until severely wounded.”
Corporal Konowal would soldier for three years and 357 days. Yet, misfortune awaited him. In Ottawa, July 19, 1919, he led the Peace Parade. The next day, in Hull, he killed Wasyl Artich, reportedly a petty criminal and bootlegger who attacked Konowal’s friend, Leonti Diedek.
Found not guilty by reason of insanity, he was confined to Montreal’s Saint Jean de Dieu Hospital. When he was discharged, like many veterans, he found himself unemployed. He rebuilt his life, marrying a French-Canadian widow and earning his keep as a Parliament Hill janitor. He died in 1959. After his burial, in Ottawa’s Notre Dame Cemetery, he was all but forgotten. Even his Victoria Cross was stolen.
Then Branch Number 360 of The Royal Canadian Legion got cracking. They and their friends placed four trilingual markers honouring Konowal across Canada. In 2000 they erected a statue in his village of Kutkivchi. And, largely thanks to them, Konowal’s long-missing VC was recovered, in 2004. It is now secure and on permanent exhibit within the Canadian War Museum.
On August 22, a last plaque was unveiled in Lens, France. The event concluded a decade-long effort to hallow Filip Konowal and the Canadian soldiers who, more than 90 years ago, went to France, many to remain there forever, having paid the ultimate sacrifice in the Great War For Civilization.
Fittingly, this project was completed in Canada’s Year of the Veteran. Yet, ironically, just a few weeks ago, Branch 360 was shut down by The Legion’s Ontario Command, ostensibly for “not doing Legion work.” We might ask what “doing Legion work” means. Our hero certainly would have.
Professor Lubomyr Luciuk represented Branch 360 and the Ukrainian Canadian community at the unveiling of the last Konowal plaque in Lens, France, on August 22, 2005.