Unpublished Memoir Sheds Light on P.O.W Experience
I’ve written several articles on Sgt. Thomas Diplock over the past few years but who better to tell his story than the man himself. I would like to thank Sharon […]
Doing Their Bit: Marika Pirie
If you research Canadian soldiers of the First World War there is a very good chance that you’ve read a news clipping or seen a photograph posted by Marika Pirie who in […]
Reunited: 1915 Sgt. Diplock postcard goes home (again)
In December I published an article on a 1915 Christmas card written by Sgt. Thomas Diplock to his future wife Gwen while he was a Prisoner of War in Giessen, Germany. Thomas was […]
Christmas at the Front – Merry Xmas from Giessen Dec. 1915
As a Prisoner of War in the Giessen P.O.W. camp Sergeant Thomas Bramah Diplock was nearly 300 miles behind enemy lines when he posted this Christmas card 100 years ago. It was […]
Kitchener’s Wood: Pte Denholm’s Curious Keepsake
Private John Denholm‘s First World War scrapbook contains an unusual piece of ephemera, a postcard written to a German soldier named Robert Kirchner. Denholm went to the trouble of having […]
Kitchener’s Wood: the letters of Sgt. Charles Herbert Peck
“The hardest thing that I have saw is a young fellow from Annapolis valley. I took a liking to him in Valcartier and keep him with me up to the […]
Forty Winks at Fleurbaix
This is the tenth in a series of articles highlighting photos and ephemera from a scrapbook compiled by Private John Denholm of the 16th Battalion (Canadian Scottish) during the First World War. The 16th Battalion arrived in […]
Chums in the Hut: The 16th Battalion at Lark Hill Camp
This is the seventh in a series of articles highlighting the experiences of Private John Denholm of the 16th Battalion (Canadian Scottish) during the First World War. Articles will be published on the 100th anniversary of each event […]
99 Years ago today: the Second Battle of Ypres
Today I commemorate my great-grandfather Lance-Corporal Herbert Clifford, 14th Battalion (Royal Montreal Regiment), who in the early evening of April 22, 1915 was shot and captured while on patrol near the G.H.Q. line. Herbert would spend the remainder of the war enduring the hardships of a First World War POW camp. The […]