pferguson | February 25, 2024

During Air Raids Mary Meta Hodge was awarded the Military Medal for Bravery in the Field. A resident of Winnipeg, Manitoba the above portrait appeared in the Canada Illustrated Weekly, 21 December 1918, p. 397. Nursing Sister Hodge was one of nine Canadian women awarded the Military Medal during the Great War. Eight of the women […]

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Tags: Air Raid, Associate of the Royal Red Cross, Beatrice McNair, Canadian Army Medical Corps, Doullens (France), Edith Campbell, Eleanor Jean Thompson, Etaples (France), Helen Elizabeth Hansen, Honours and Awards, Janet Mary Williamson, Lenora Herrington, Lottie Urquhart, Marie Dow Lutwick, Mary Meta Hodge, Military Medal, No 2 Canadian Stationary Hospital, No. 2 Canadian General Hospital, No. 3 Canadian General Hospital, No. 3 Canadian Stationary Hospital, No. 58 Casualty Clearing Station, No. 8 Canadian General Hospital, Nursing Sisters, Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service (Reserve), Royal Red Cross

pferguson | October 29, 2023

Returned Soldier Writes of Ghosts Too often the loser in that struggle was the ex-soldier, reduced to plead[ing] hopelessly with soul-less powers who renege their promises made, who grind these broken veterans to starvation, shame and suicide. (Will R. Bird M.M. (Returned Soldier) in Death So Noble, J. Vance, p. 119) William Richard Bird was a […]

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Tags: 25th Canadian Infantry Battalion, 42nd Canadian Infantry Battalion, 85th Canadian Infantry Battalion, And We Go On, Beny-sur-Mer Canadian War Cemetery, Ethel Bird, Ghosts Have Warm Hands, Hubert Craige Bird, Lewis Bransby Bird, Military Medal, Stanley Stephen Bird, Stephen Carman Bird, Thirteen Years After, William Richard Bird, Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial

pferguson | June 26, 2021

Canadian Artillery in Action Canadian war artist Kenneth Forbes was all to familiar with service on the Western Front. Born in Toronto, Canada Forbes, prior to the Great War, studied art in the United Kingdom and had twelve of his portraits exhibited at the Royal Academy, London, England. In 1914 Forbes joined the British Army’s […]

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Tags: 16th Battalion CEF (Canadian Scottish), Canadian Artillery in Action, Canadian Field Artillery, Canadian War Memorials Fund, Honours and Awards, Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire (IODE), Kenneth Forbes, Lord Beaverbrook, Military Medal, Phillip Henry Button, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry (PPCLI), War Artists, William Metcalf VC MM and Bar

pferguson | April 24, 2020

All the Following Days The tale of two soldiers…both runners (messengers) with the 72nd Canadian Infantry Battalion (Seaforth Highlanders of Canada). Some days prior to the famed attack, whilst in the line near Vimy Ridge, Privates Alexander Broadfoot (130245) and James Mucklow (160827) stood near. Private Mucklow was on duty this day, 1 April 1917, […]

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Tags: 1 April 1917, 420 (Snowy Owl) Squadron, 72nd Canadian Infantry Battalion, 82nd Canadian Infantry Battalion, Alexander Broadbent, American Army, Asthma, Bergen-op-Zoom Canadian War Cemetery (Netherlands), Bronchitis, Burnsland Cemetery (Calgary), Camp Funston (Kansas), Chat Hunting, Chats, Chatting, COVID-19, Eric Kennington, Etaples Military Cemetery, Film History, Gallipoli, Hastings Park, Hotel Lotus, Influenza, James Mucklow, James Mucklow Jr., John Mucklow, Joseph Acheson, László Mednyánszky, Lice, Married Man, Measles, Military Medal, Mucklow Family, No. 56 General Hospital, Passchendaele, Peter Weir, Pyrexia of Unknown Origin (P.U.O.), Rose Mucklow, Roy Mucklow, Royal Canadian Air Force, Runner (Messenger), Soldiers Hunting for Lice, Souchez, Trench Fever

pferguson | April 21, 2020

Camouflet a mine so charged and placed that its detonation will destroy enemy mining tunnels. 2a. an underground or subsurface explosion of a bomb or shell that leaves a sealed pocket of smoke and gas. 2b. a pocket formed in this way. (Merriam-Webster Dictionary) I return this evening to a favoured online resource. As I […]

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Tags: 26 March 1917, 38th Canadian Infantry Battalion, Boezinge, Cadence, Camouflet, Charles Gordon Matthewson, Corporal Richard Rainford, COVID-19, David McCullough (Narrator), Dixmude, Dugout, Ernest David Ruffles, Gas, George Frederick Giddens, George Nicholls, George William Ewart Jemmett, Gus Sheff, Life Saving, Military Medal, Private Albert Ernest Carey, Private Harold Leslie Edwards, Sergeant Thomas Clifford Briscoe, Shelby Foote (Novelist-Historian), Souchez (France), Storytelling, Villers Station Cemetery, William Valentine, Yorkshire Trench