What is the history of a drumhead service?

Answer 1

A Drumhead Service is a church service conducted "in the field" during armed conflict, often near the battlefront. Lacking a church to attend, the military command used its drums, piled neatly and draped with appropriate colours (national or regimental flags, for example) to create an altar. Remembering, in much of the Western World, military chaplains or padres were expected to conduct non-denominational or multi-denominational services to the troops, the drumhead altar was a "generic" altar, suited to its military purpose.

In the Ontario Provincial Command of The Royal Canadian Legion, each Zone (within an hierarchy of Branch-Zone-District-Provincial-Dominion Command) conducts a Drumhead Service on the Sunday beginning Legion Week, usually the 3rd Sunday in September to commemorate this war-time event.