On the grounds of the University of Toronto’s St. George campus, near Hart House, a visitor might come upon a memorial plaque that is both surprising and emotionally stirring. It relates how, in the early months of 1917, officers of the Canadian School of Infantry began training twenty-three Polish probationary officers on that very site. These Polish officers were among the first of the tens of thousands of North American volunteers of Polish descent who would be trained in Canada to fight for Poland’s independence in World War I and in the 1920 Polish-Bolshevik War. The Canadians named on that plaque were unlikely allies in the cause of Polish independence, with many of them remaining devoted friends of Poland for decades afterwards. Among these esteemed Canadians was an unassuming Toronto elementary school principal, Major William Frederick (W.F.) Kirk.

A Schoolmaster and a Soldier

Camp Kościuszko

In September 1917 the training operation moved to ‘Camp Kościuszko’ at Niagara-on-the-Lake, a former Canadian Army camp that had been used to train soldiers for World War I from 1915-16. There, Kirk commanded the 2nd Depot Battalion of the Błękitna Armia, Haller’s Blue Army, which fought for Poland’s independence on the Western Front and in the Polish-Bolshevik War. Over less than two years, Camp Kościuszko prepared 22,395 Polish American and Canadian recruits to liberate Poland, which had been under partition by Russia, Prussia and Austria-Hungary since 1795. Kirk was every day in the field with his men: in June 1918 he personally led a draft of 505 troops to embarkation, and in March 1919 he was among the last of the permanent staff to depart.

A Friend of Poland

While Camp Kościuszko may have been disbanded, Kirk remained a devoted friend to Poles and the cause of Polish independence. He brought Poland into the elementary school classroom, teaching Polish history to eight hundred of his own pupils through the Second World War, and later served as Interim President of the United Polish Relief Fund in Canada.

On 28 October 1943, Polish Envoy Wiktor Podoski nominated Kirk for the Złoty Krzyż Zasługi — the Gold Cross of Merit — writing that ‘to overlook him again would be an injustice to this friend of Poland’. Major Kirk died in 1958 and was interred at Mount Pleasant Cemetery, his service complete and his kinship with Poles enduring. We salute the memory of W.F. Kirk and his Canadian comrades… Cześć Ich Pamięci!

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