Filip Konowal

Few soldiers in Canadian military history followed a path as extraordinary as Filip Konowal VC. Born in Ukraine under the Russian Empire, he crossed an ocean to begin a new life in Canada, returned to military service during the First World War, and became one of the most celebrated infantrymen of the Canadian Expeditionary Force. At the Battle of Hill 70 in 1917, Konowal repeatedly attacked German positions at close range and earned the Victoria Cross, the highest decoration for valour available to Canadian soldiers of his generation. He was also the first member of the Canadian Expeditionary Force born outside the British Empire to receive the Victoria Cross.

Filip Konowal was born on 25 March 1887 at Kutkivtsi, in the Podolia Governorate of the Russian Empire, in present-day Ukraine. Library and Archives Canada confirms his date of birth and later Canadian service number, 144039. Before emigrating, Konowal served in the Imperial Russian Army and received training as a bayonet instructor. Some later accounts identify him with the Russian Imperial Guards, but the official Canadian record more cautiously establishes his Russian Army service and specialist bayonet training.

After leaving Russian military service, Konowal travelled through Vladivostok and arrived in Canada in 1913. He initially worked in British Columbia before moving east, earning a living through physically demanding work in the Ottawa Valley and surrounding region. When the First World War created a new call for soldiers, he enlisted at Ottawa on 12 July 1915 with the 77th Canadian Infantry Battalion.

In June 1916, Konowal sailed from Halifax aboard the RMS Missanabie for Britain. After reaching England he transferred to the 47th Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force, which formed part of the 10th Canadian Infantry Brigade of the 4th Canadian Division. The battalion proceeded to France in August 1916. Konowal served on the Western Front and was wounded during the Somme fighting before returning to duty.

On 6 April 1917 he was appointed acting corporal. Konowal subsequently took part in the Canadian operations at Vimy Ridge with the 47th Battalion. His presence in the campaign is well supported, but the surviving evidence does not justify the more specific claim that he personally commanded the attack on the feature known as the Pimple. For publication, his participation at Vimy should therefore be stated without assigning him an unsupported individual tactical role.

Four months later came the action that made his name part of Canadian military history.

From 22 to 24 August 1917, during the fighting around Hill 70 and Lens in France, Acting Corporal Konowal was in charge of an infantry section ordered to clear heavily defended German positions. His men faced cellars, craters and machine-gun emplacements that had been incorporated into the enemy defensive system. Konowal repeatedly moved ahead of his section and attacked positions himself.

His Victoria Cross citation opened with the words "For most conspicuous bravery and leadership when in charge of a section in attack." It recorded that Konowal personally bayoneted three enemy soldiers in one cellar, attacked another seven in a crater, and later rushed a machine-gun position that was holding up the Canadian advance. After killing the crew, he carried the captured gun back to the Canadian lines. On the following day he attacked another machine-gun emplacement, killed three of its defenders and destroyed the position with explosives. The official citation credited him with killing at least sixteen enemy soldiers before he was severely wounded.

The award of the Victoria Cross was published in the London Gazette, No. 30400, on 26 November 1917. The Department of National Defence identifies his qualifying action as taking place from 22 to 24 August 1917 and confirms that he earned the decoration while serving with the 47th Battalion.

Konowal's wounds brought his active front-line combat service to an end. He was evacuated to Britain and treated at Beaufort War Hospital in Bristol, followed by further convalescence. His injuries included a serious head wound whose effects would continue long after the war.

After recovering sufficiently for further service, Konowal was assigned for a period to duties connected with the Russian Military Attaché in London. In 1918 he volunteered for the Canadian Siberian Expeditionary Force, but he should not be described as having served personally with the 259th Battalion unless further service documentation establishes such a posting. The detailed service account instead records that he was taken on strength of the Base Headquarters Unit of the Canadian Siberian Expeditionary Force in September 1918 and appointed acting sergeant.

Konowal sailed from Vancouver for Vladivostok in October 1918. During the Siberian intervention he performed duties that included interpretation and liaison work. From 28 March to 1 June 1919, he served with a small Allied liaison group at Omsk, far inland from Vladivostok. He returned to Canada in June and was discharged from military service on 4 July 1919. This was service during the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War, but it should not be confused with a second front-line combat tour.

For Konowal, the war did not end simply because he came home.

On 20 July 1919, he became involved in a fatal altercation with William Artich. Konowal was charged with murder, and the proceedings were repeatedly delayed while his physical and mental condition was examined. Medical specialists, including a physician who had treated his wartime head injury, testified about the effects of the skull wound and its possible connection to his mental condition at the time of the incident.

At his trial in April 1921, the jury found Konowal not guilty by reason of insanity. This is the correct historical legal verdict. It should not be described merely as an acquittal on grounds of "medical unfitness," which confuses the legal finding with his broader wartime disabilities. Following the verdict, Konowal was committed to institutional care. He remained in psychiatric institutions for several years before being released in 1928.

Rebuilding his civilian life proved difficult. After periods of unemployment and manual work, assistance came from another Canadian Victoria Cross recipient, Milton Fowler Gregg VC MC. Gregg, then associated with the House of Commons as Sergeant-at-Arms, helped Konowal obtain work as a junior caretaker at the House of Commons in 1936. This distinction is important because the original biography incorrectly credited Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King with obtaining the initial position.

Mackenzie King entered the story later. According to the detailed historical accounts, the Prime Minister noticed the crimson ribbon of the Victoria Cross on Konowal's caretaker uniform and learned who he was. King then arranged for Konowal to be assigned as a special custodian associated with the Prime Minister's office, a position Konowal continued to hold for many years.

Konowal's surviving medal group reflects both his First World War service and his later recognition as a distinguished veteran. It consists of the Victoria Cross, British War Medal 1914-1920, Victory Medal 1914-1919, King George VI Coronation Medal 1937, and Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Medal 1953. The Canadian War Museum has displayed his medal group as part of its commemoration of the Victoria Cross recipients of Hill 70.

The Russian Cross of St. George, 4th Class is intentionally not presented here as a verified decoration. Secondary sources repeatedly attribute it to Konowal, but the original Russian award documentation and Canadian authorization for wear have not yet been located to the standard required for a verified Victoriacross.ca entitlement.

In 1956, Konowal joined other surviving Victoria Cross recipients in Britain for the centenary of the Victoria Cross. Photographs from the celebrations show him among a remarkable gathering of Canadian and Commonwealth recipients, decades after the battle that had changed his life.

Konowal's health deteriorated during his final years. In 1959 he was admitted to the Veterans' Pavilion of Ottawa Civic Hospital, where he died on 3 June 1959, aged 72. Veterans Affairs Canada independently confirms that his death occurred in Ottawa, Ontario, correcting older accounts that placed his death in Hull, Quebec. He was buried at Notre Dame Cemetery in Ottawa with military honours.

Filip Konowal's life was far more complicated than the single moment for which he received the Victoria Cross. He was an immigrant, a veteran of two armies, a Canadian infantryman, a severely wounded survivor of the Western Front, a participant in Canada's Siberian expedition, and a man who struggled for years with the consequences of war before rebuilding his life on Parliament Hill.

Yet his place in Canadian military history rests above all on those days near Lens in August 1917. Faced with fortified positions and devastating machine-gun fire, Filip Konowal VC repeatedly went forward when doing so meant facing the enemy at the closest possible range. More than a century later, his actions at Hill 70 remain one of the most remarkable individual feats of infantry gallantry performed by a Canadian soldier during the First World War.