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Did you know that my Dad, who was a member of the Canadian Machine Gun Corps, from 1915 to 1919, was issued with body armour? A sort of chainmail tunic, with a steel plate on the chest, and a helmet with a face visor. He said it was really heavy, and as soon as he could, he " lost " it, in a large pool of water, during a night advance to the support trenches. What with the weight of the Vickers Gun, its tripod, water cans, and ammunition boxes, his 12 man crew had hundreds of pounds of gear to carry.

He was in action from first Ypres, right thru to November, 1918, Wounded three times, and on two different occasions, he was the only one out of 12 that was not killed. He survived the war, lived to be 83 years of age, with small slivers of steel coming out of his body fifty years later, and no hearing in his right ear. Firing a few million rounds of 303 will do that to a guy.

Jim Bunting.

BUNTINGJ, I know this is a tad late....HE WAS A LUCKY MAN TO SURVIVE THAT TERRIBLE WAR......

I see someone else's Grandfather fought in France in WWI. My Great Grandfather Dougan, aye laddie, a good Scottish name, fought in the first world war. Vimy ridge, was gassed in France, mustard gas I believe, wounded and eventually sent home. He was probably only 16 or 17 years old. Oh, I think he was in the 31st batallion.

He told us a story once that to this day we do not know if he was telling the truth. He mentioned that the trenches were really close in France-between the allies and the Germans. Someone that went to France and saw some of these trenches verified that they were indeed very close together. Anyway, my great grandfather said that it was night time. Flares would go up on ocassion, and he said this big ass German was out of his trench; everytime a flare went up, the German would crouch down and stick his fat ass in my grandfather's face-so he says anyway. This happened about 5 times and my great grandfather couldn't take it anymore. He pulled out his rifle and shot the German in the ass. Yes, it did kill the German. My great grandfather says he was court martialed for breaking the silence. When he told the superiors what happened in this court martial, they let him go. Again, to this day, we have no idea if it is true or not, but what a story!

Years ago I used to spend all my time at the neighborhood pub, the main reason is because of all the interesting peolpe I'd meet there (while shooting stick). One of the guys I met was a WW II vet from the RCAF. Of all the stories he told, one fact has always stuck out in my mind. He did three tours as a tailgunner in a Lancaster. Ninety missions and he still had all his limbs intact.

So I always wondered from then on, what's the record? I know tailgunners got it pretty bad so I can't imagine that it would be much more than that. Any ideas?

What my grandfather told me of the Ross wasn't a jambing problem but rather the breech didn't lock due to foriegn material and the damn bolt would blow back and take the side of a guys face off.

Piere Burton has a book about vimy ridge..its very interesting because it explains all the new ideas the Canadians brought with them..ie flash spotting artilary, the creaping barrage Perhaps the best was the fact that every unit, every soldier was told exactly what is was they were to do. The British and French didnt do this, they thought the common soldier to enept I belive, (please correct me if i'm wrong here). I know Piere wrote this.... a French Officer who was in London, when told that Vimy Ridge had been taken said "that's impossible". Then he was told it was the Canadians who did it, and he said "The Canadians, it is possible!" In all the reading i've done on Canada in the Great War, the basic message I get is that the Canadians were very good, and well respected....not much has changed in that deptment.

After reading a few threads here I got to googling Patricias light infantry in an attempt to find some info on my bud's dad who served in Normandy with no luck again.I know he was shipped out of Calgary and is still alive but wont talk much about it anymore.When we were kids he had endless stories about the war and a few bullet wounds to boot. The german uniforms and rifles were also impressive.Searching out wwII info will get you the legion magazine online and the last post.


legion magazine

They have lots of good reading on Canadiana.

Hi Ziggy, I may be corrected on this one but as far as I know the PPCLI were not at Normandy, they were slugging it out in Italy, called D-Day dodgers by people who had no idea of the Hell that was the Italian Campaign.

My two cents on the Ross, it was nothing more than a political piece of shit, it is unfortunate that so many innocent and brave young Canadians died because of a politicians crookedness. On a similar not, when my grandfather returned from WW2 after serving as a Wireless Air Gunner in 415 Sqn, when they arrived in Montreal prior to being released from the RCAF, they were required to "purchase" brand new uniforms in Montreal to help kick start the economy out of their own pockets. "Thank you very much for giving up the best years of your life, now before we let you become a civy pay up" OUTRAGEOUS!!!!

My own grandfather was a purser on the Mauritania during WW1 and had nice words to say about the Canadians. When the USA entered the war he enlisted in the Army and saw duty in France. I have a picture of him with his Remington and some sort of holstered revolver. I've always thought that it was odd that he was a sargeant with a pistol as usually only officers had pistols.

He died when I was only four so I never talked to him about the Great War. My grandmother was kind enough to give me his medals and ribbons and I treasure them highly.

Sept. 28 1972....."Henderson has scored for Canada." I was 1 yr, 8 months, and 25 days old(can't remember if it was leap year or not ) when this happened....ahhh I remember it like yesterday


PS...Kudos to Barts Grandpa.

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