In a church’s Honour Roll from a church that no long exists in Sarnia, Ontario, 16 names are listed of the dead. This church of community and love honoured the fallen. But now the church is gone and it is up to use, as a legacy to those that have passed to continue to honour... Continue Reading →
Soldiers Posted Today
One of the primary objectives of this blog is to list the soldiers found in the 18th Battalion War Diary. As research shows that the private soldier (or "other ranks") where rarely mentioned in the War Diary of the 18th Battalion the research has been expanded to list any soldier found during research for this... Continue Reading →
City of Sarnia Honours the Fallen
The City of Sarnia with work by Tom Slater are updating and revising the The Remembrance Project: A Record of Fallen Soldiers according to this article in the The Observer. The current version is available at several sites and this link will take you to the Lambton County Library version in PDF format. This resource... Continue Reading →
A Young Girl Remembers into Adulthood
Anges McVittie was a young girl when Alfred Steggles boarded with her family before he joined the CEF and the 186 Overseas Battalion on March 13, 1916. Eventually assigned to the 18th Battalion he was to be killed in action exactly one year before the Great War's end. He was one of 154 Canadian soldiers... Continue Reading →
Anniversary
Today marks the 100th anniversary of my Grandfather's enlistment into the 18th Battalion, Western Ontario, Regiment, CEF.
The Goss Family
As often happens in research one soldier's research leads to another. During the research into Private Percy Lemmon one of the news articles shared with me shows another soldier who served in the 18th Battalion, George Goss. George Goss had two other family members who served in the C.E.F.. His father served in the 18th... Continue Reading →
New Soldiers Listed
One of the major endeavors of this blog is to list every soldier I find through researching the 18th Battalion. There is a Nominal Roll (1915) available digitally but the efforts focused at this blog is to do the research of the War Diaries and list those soldiers that are named in the War Diary.... Continue Reading →
Found: A friend of my Grandfather who served with him.
One of the opportunities for researching soldiers is the fact that many soldiers that enlisted often enlisted with their "chums" at the same enlistment office. In an article about researching soldiers it pointed out that since the service numbers were often assigned sequentially then if someone checked the proceeding and preceding service numbers and they... Continue Reading →
August 21st, 1917: A Brutal Day and a Horrific Month
Thanks to a reader of this blog I was made aware of a member of the 18th Battalion, C.E.F. Private Percy William Lemmon, 880420 served with the Battalion and was severly wounded on this date. More biographical information will follow but War Diary entry on this date is a stark and relevant reminder as we... Continue Reading →
“… he was probably the youngest major in the Canadian army.”
So says the Toronto World newspaper on March 10th, 1917 just 5 days after acting Major George Vincent Nelson was killed. He joined the 18th Battalion on May 6, 1916 as a reinforcement after originally joining the 83rd Overseas Battalion on September 4, 1914. During his duty with the 18th Battalion, which spanned less than... Continue Reading →
Lieutenant Ewen McLachlin
During the search for soldiers of the 18th Battalion I found Lieutenant Thayer Vincent Milford a site was found referring to him as belonging to the Western Ontario Regiment on the West Carlton Honour Roll. As I perused the site I noticed an entry for a Lieutenant Ewen McLachlin. Having a connection through relatives to... Continue Reading →
Curious Grave Marker
The We Are The Dead ( @WeAreTheDead ) Twitter account unfailingly posts the names of Canadian Service Men and Women who gave the ultimate sacrifice. One such tweet got my attention as I check any of the tweets with Western Ontario Regiment to see if any of these soldier commemorated are from the 18th. In... Continue Reading →
Update
This blog has been working to add soldiers to the Soldiers's Pages from the research and transcription of the war diaries and from other sources. Currently I have 7 soldiers with initial research started and 23 soldiers, mostly officers, that have been listed and have no research done. One of the challenges of doing this... Continue Reading →
Serving His Country Twice
There are 2 inscriptions at the Zivy Crater Memorial, Thelus in the Pas de Calais region that bear witness to an interesting story. A soldier, Private George Symonds, 18th Battalion, who died on April 9, 1917 on the first day of the Vimy Battle that Canadian's memorialize every year, was not Private George Symonds at... Continue Reading →
When One Soldier Leads You to Another: Lee to Stephens
One of the goals of this blog is to list every soldier mentioned in the 18th Battalion C.E.F. War Diary and, at the least, have a specific Soldier's Page with their Attestation Papers, a link to their Service Records (if digitized) and any other pertinent information found via the Internet. At first the focus was... Continue Reading →
Child Soldier Mystery
Attested with the names Alexander Marquis AKA Alexander Morykwas. Listed at the CWGC and the CVWM as being 16. Attestation papers say he was born in 1897 so was at least 18 at time of death but if you look at the scan of the burial record of this soldier you will see that the... Continue Reading →
The Mystery of the Pastor of the 18th Battalion
In the paper En Route to Flanders Fields there is a quote that is currently a mystery: Sergeant Dickson of the 18th Battalion Canadian Infantry was, until enlistment, a pastor at the Methodist Episcopal Church in Cleveland City, Ohio and was invited to lead a service from the pulpit in the Grace Hill Wesleyan Church,... Continue Reading →
Correcting History One Soldier at a Time
In a recent soldier post of Private James Hislop (Service No.: 54341) it occurred to me that the soldier record for him was incorrect. He was listed as serving in the 15th Battalion, Central Ontario Regiment at the time of his death. Since I had corroboration that he had served with the 18h Battalion through... Continue Reading →
A Letter Home: The ’18th’ suffered terribly lately.
Note: Posted corrected to state true author of letter and to add text from second JPEG. On May 2, 1916 Major George Whitford Nelson's wife Edna wrote a letter to her family in Canada. The 18th Battalion had been in overseas action since September 1915 and had seen fighting in Flanders. It has been blooded... Continue Reading →
Hope Dashed…
On January 31st, 1916 the 18th Battalion War Diary recorded: Battn as yesterday - Pte. Atherton wounded on fatigue. Scouts Broadwell, Reeves reported missing - Lost on patrol. One wonders how the family found out and took this information but a news article later in the year gives hope and then another one dashes it.... Continue Reading →
History of the 18th Battalion CEF, "The Fighting Eighteenth" 