One of the greatest challenges when writing stories about the Front is the discipline to contain a narrative when there is so much to say. Sometimes, however, the story demands more and in such cases I’ve called them out as Feature Stories written in multiple parts.
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The Bombardier was a piece I wrote in 2009, before anything had been written about William Currin. I thought now, with our relations with the United States the lowest they’ve ever been, might be the right time to revisit it, fine tune it, and repost it. It’s a story from a time when the United…
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It was a story that ran in papers across the country two weeks after the Declaration of War: “Rocky Mountain Rangers Fired on From Ambush,” read The Ottawa Journal on August 20th. “What is believed to have been a determined attempt to wreck the troop train which passed through Revelstoke Sunday night carrying 150 sailors…
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This is the first part in a multi-part feature story of Private R.C. Royston #29015; a Canadian soldier in the 16th Battalion Canadian Scottish, who enlisted at Valcartier and was taken prisoner at the Second Battle of Ypres. This story was inspired by a single photograph and name in Library and Archives Canada.
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Despite all of the information available, researching events of the first world war presents many challenges; after a hundred years both the facts and the feel are easily blurred. One diligent officer’s entries in the battalion’s war diary during an uneventful week might include descriptions of working parties, church parades and baseball games, deployments of…
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This is the first of a 2 part story on Newfoundland, focused on the debacle at Beaumont Hamel on the first day of the Somme that every Newfoundlander commemorates on the morning of July 1st while the rest of Canada recognizes Canada Day. The afternoon gives way to celebration of Confederation which, for Newfoundland, took…
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The Ypres Salient is a natural jump-off point for a visit to the Western Front: the scene of fighting throughout the war and a name synonymous with the savagery of the conflict – as one soldier expressed,“there is fighting, there is damned fighting, and there is the Ypres Salient” . The Salient was formed in…
Perspectives On The Front 