Perspectives On The Front

I decided to put this into the Research Travelogue category as this really is an important ticket for my story telling and forms part of the foundation for a wonderful adventure. It’s also a tale about good fortune and acts of kindness – something about which all of us need to be reminded on occasion.

The Journey

The first stage in this journey goes back almost a decade, to 2016, when I received a comment on one of my blogs from a person asking what I knew about Forbes Ruddock – that he had an envelope with Forbes’s name on it and was doing some amateur sleuthing. In line with my naturally suspicious nature, and strengthened by my job in the cybersecurity industry, it took me a few days to respond; but I eventually did.

Ross (his first name) turned out to be a hobbyist stamp collector and in going through his collection had come across a letter addressed to Forbes. The letter had arrived after his death at Vimy Ridge so had subsequently been returned to the sender. While the envelope didn’t contain a letter, it held one vital piece of information that opened up a treasure trove of findings: it identified Forbes’s company and platoon: No. 1 Company, No. 2 Platoon. After a little more back and forth, Ross offered to send me the envelope – an offer I gratefully accepted.

Company and Platoon Information

The identification of a soldier’s company or platoon is unbelievably valuable in telling a story. I have combed through pages and pages of service records trying to identify the company in which a soldier served looking for a random mark on one of the pages in the file or even a passing reference in the battalion Part II orders that might have been noted as a result of a battlefield incident, illness, disciplinary action or the like.

References to a soldier’s platoon are even more rare; but this information unlocks a treasure chest . . . the curtain on a soldier’s life at the front is unveiled. From understanding what the company CO was doing at a given time to knowing a precise positioning on a given attack it’s the company and platoon detail that provides the map .

Knowledge of the company and platoon in which Forbes served has allowed me to use documents like the 16th Battalion war diaries, and the Part I and Part II orders, to understand what Forbes was experiencing at the front – to understand, as an example, what his first days at the Front may have been like, his role in battles like Courcellette, Regina Trench and Sugar Trench, connections he might have had to other men in the platoon, men with whom he served in both the 72nd Seaforth Highlanders and the Canadian Scottish as part of the first draft – and perhaps most importantly, most poingantly, to appreciate more clearly his last days before he was killed at Vimy Ridge.