Source: Daily Sentinel- Review November 5 1917 Page 1.
NO RECEPTION FOR RETURNED SOLDIERS
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Plans For Giving Them A Welcome Miscarried Through Misunderstanding At London.
——Three Woodstock soldiers who have seen service at the front in the present war arrived in Woodstock during the week-end, and two of them, through no fault of anyone here, were not accorded any kind of public reception.
Lance-corp. A. Dennett, and Pte. W.J. Thomas, two of the three men who went through on their way London on Saturday afternoon on the 7.57 train the same evening and arrangements had been made to meet them at the station, but at 7.30 the military hospital authorities at London, over long distance telephone, announced that all three men were still awaiting examination and would not be able to get away for an hour and a half at least. Those who had arranged to loan their automobiles and those who were to take part in the reception, therefore, were notified that the expected men would not reach the city until the arrival of the 1.08 Grand Trunk train in the morning.
In the meanwhile, however, Lance-corp Dennett and Pte. Thomas were actually on their way here by different routes. The former arrived on the 7.57 Grand Trunk train and the latter on the 8.35 C.P.R. train.
Still later in the evening a telegram was received by the secretary of the Soldiers’ Aid Commission saying that one man had left London on the train due here at 7.57, and that the remainder of the party would arrive at 1.08. Accordingly the “midnight” train was met, but no returned men among the passengers, and it developed that the third member of the party, H.F. Welford had decided to stay over in London a few days.
On Sunday afternoon the Grand Trunk 5.13 train brought to the city Sergt. Jack Wylson, who went overseas with the original 18th battalion. He was at the front for about a year, and went through some of the stiffest engagements of the war without a scratch. Some months ago, however, he developed a lung trouble which necessitated his being invalided to England, and subsequently to Canada. He was met by a delegation of returned soldiers and Soldiers’ Aid Commission representative and given a warm welcome.
Both Wounded
The two men who arrived on Saturday evening had both been wounded. Lance-corp. Dennett, whose home in on Cathcart Street, received a face wound about a year ago, from which he…
History of the 18th Battalion CEF, "The Fighting Eighteenth" 