This blog has touched on the role that British Home Children had in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, and specifically the 18th Battalion. It is estimated that up to 10 percent of all Canadians can trace an ancestral connection with a British Home Child. One of the pleasures of hosting a Facebook Page for the 18th... Continue Reading →
100 Years Past: The “Fighting” 18th Battalion Lives!
18th Battalion Facebook member, Ed Wilson, forwarded these three photographs of re-enactors dressed as 18th Battalion soldiers visiting the Vimy Ridge battlefield. Specifically, the photographs of the soldier standing in the field is located in the approximate location of the 18th Battalion's position before the attack on their objectives at Vimy Ridge on April 9,... Continue Reading →
November 1917 Casualties
The 18th Battalion was active in the Passchendaele Sector and the number of men in the 18th that have no known grave bears witness to the terrible conditions and ferocity of the fighting in that sector. Rank Surname Forename Date of Death Reg. No. Private ABERCROMBY J 09/11/1917 123978 Private AKINS J 09/11/1917 770008 Private... Continue Reading →
War Diary Summary: May 1917
Having come off the success of the Vimy attack in early April the Battalion moved into Divisional Reserve April 16 and was then moved to a rest camp on April 26. At this camp the were rested and refitted, and though the War Diary makes no note of it, the Battalion must have been making... Continue Reading →
October 1917 Casualties
October 1917 found the 18th Battalion in the Vimy Sector engaged in working parties. A review of the War Diary for this month does not find any mention of any action in which Privage Swan was involved in that may have caused his death. His service records as of the date of this posting are... Continue Reading →
War Diary of the 18th Battalion: May 1917
CONFIDENTIAL WAR DIARY -OF- 18th CANADIAN BATTALION - 2nd CANADIAN DIVISION From 1st May to 31st May 1917 Volume 31 With appendicies 1-2 Place Date Hour Summary of Events and Information 1 a.m. Battalion in Reserve camp near NEUVILLE ST VAST. Battalion parade and company training. During the afternoon recreational exercise such as Football, Baseball... Continue Reading →
Blog Resources for Vimy Ridge
Though not exhaustive there are resources related to the 18th Battalion and its experience at Vimy Ridge. War Diary of the 18th Battalion: April 1917 War Diary Summary: April 1917 April 1917 Casualties Vimy Ridge: Instructions for the Offensive The Stress of Combat: Captain Lloyd at Vimy Ridge A Letter From a Soldier Who Served... Continue Reading →
Faces of April 1917
Men of the 18th Battalion who made the ultimate sacrifice.
Untold Misery Has Been the Harvest Now: The Letters of Major George Whitford Nelson
Introduction The intent of this blog post is to expand upon a series of letters diligently transcribed by the Bruce County Archives entitled Correspondence from Lieutenant Colonel George Whitford Nelson to his sister, Mrs. William Kidd, 1914-1916, A99.058.008. This resource was found during research into this soldier and offers an invaluable insight into the feelings,... Continue Reading →
A Letter From Major Nelson Aboard the S.S. Grampian
Major George Whitford Nelson, adjutant for the 18th Battalion writes from the S.S. Grampian: Mrs. W. Kidd Elsinore, Ont., Bruce Co. Canadian Pacific Railway Ocean Services R.M.S. Grampian Mid Ocean April 25, 1915 Dear Friends, I can’t very well tell you where I am but will know better when I get a chance to post... Continue Reading →
…and no battalion has a more glorious record than our good old 18th.
On April 10, 1919 two news stories about the 18th Battalion were published on page three in the Border Cities Star. One story was about the past, told of a traitor in the 18th who “surrendered” to the Germans in July 1918 while the Battalion was stationed in the Telegraph Hill area in the Arras... Continue Reading →
A Traitor in the Ranks
The war is over. Not long over but the reverberations and attitudes to people considered “others” by Canadian society appears to still be prevalent and on the minds of the general public even at wars end. At least it was important enough to make a page three story in the Border Cities Star published in... Continue Reading →
GWCA Second Lecture – Forgotten Enemies: Great War Interments in Canada
GWCA Second Lecture - Forgotten Enemies: Great War Interments in Canada by Mary Chaktsiris. Mary Chaktsiris is affiliated with Laurier Centre for Military Strategic and Disarmament Studies and her doctoral work focused on the City of Toronto regarding recruitment, conscription, the Toronto Soldier's Insurance Plan, internment of enemy aliens, and the 1918 Toronto Riots. Lecture... Continue Reading →
September 1917 Casualties
During September 1917 622 Canadian service personnel ware listed at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission of dying. Of these military personnel five of them were members of the 18th Battalion. Surname Forename Age Date of Death Interned Reg. No. AMOR FRANK 25 13/09/1917 France 158030 DANIEL JESSE 28 11/09/1917 France 53794 LUCAS REGINALD GUY 36... Continue Reading →
Summary of Service: Bryce, William Wilson: Service no. 770063
A recent contact by a relative allowed a more detailed examination of the service record of Private William Wilson Bryce. Below is a summary of service high-lighting the more significant aspects of his service. Private Bryce's service record only has one demerit for being absent without leave very early in his service and his experiences... Continue Reading →
“He is survived…”
Preface This article is a departure from previous biographical pieces about the soldiers of the 18th Battalion because of the personal experiences of the author in the geographic area in which this story unfolds. Thus, it is more personal and subjective with the attendant personal observations and valuations of someone that has been there and... Continue Reading →
The Letters of Private Henry Roward Barrett, reg. no. 739518
Private Barrett was a mystery soldier since January 2016. He was found quite by accident when a letter he wrote was found in The Grand River Sanchem[i] under the name of Harry Barrett. After searching vainly for this soldier using a manual search at the Library and Archives Canada the search was abandoned to focus... Continue Reading →
A French Town Remembers
The French town of Givenchy-en-Gohelle is situated adjacent to the Vimy Ridge Memorial and I had the pleasure of taking a coffee at the Leleu Martine Cafe in September 2015 when my sister and I visited the Vimy Memorial and battlefield. The cafe had many mementos reflecting the Canadian presence in the sector of France and... Continue Reading →
February 1917 War Diary Summary
Map 51b NW1 - Thelus Sector (original trench map from the archives of Lt. G. V. Laughton, M.C.) Source: http://cefww1soldierrregan.blogspot.ca/ February 1917 found the Battalion engaged in rest, refitting, and training in the Auchel sector from February 1 to 12 with one day of marching to its next duty station with the 4th Canadian Infantry Brigade,... Continue Reading →
“But should I die serving my country…”
John Archibald McCallum was old by the standards of the average Canadian soldier enlisting in 1916. The attestation papers remark that his hair was “Black sprinkled with grey” when he joined the 160th Battalion at Lion’s Head, Ontario. Regardless of this sign of age the doctor examining him declared his physical development as “excellent.” The... Continue Reading →
History of the 18th Battalion CEF, "The Fighting Eighteenth" 