It was one hundred years ago today that Canada and Britain declared war on Germany and entered into the costliest war in human history. My great-grandfather, Donald West, enlisted at the age of sixteen. He was in the 13th Field Ambulance in France. He served alongside Alexander Fleming, the Canadian who discovered Penicillin. When the fighting slowed and the guns fell temporarily silent, it was the duty of these men to pick up the bloody pieces where their friends and comrades fell. My great-grandfather spent 18 months on the western front before he was identified as being underage. He wrote to his sister on November 18th, 1917, “I have just been warned today that I am to return to Canada for discharge, and I expect to go on Thursday for Bourdon where we will go to the boat. I will wire you from there if anything happens that I cannot get off to see you. Gosh, I am happy.” For the latter 12 months of the war, Donald served in a medical division in Vancouver, distributing vaccines in Stanley Park. After the war, Donald continued to wear a uniform, as he worked as a Canadian customs officer on the waterfront docks of Vancouver. He married and raised a family. Harold, his eldest son—my granduncle—served in the Netherlands in the Second World War. Ron, his youngest son—my grandfather—served as a wireless operator aboard a Merchant Navy ship that freighted bombs across the Atlantic during the Korean War. Donald West lived to the ripe old age of 81. He rarely spoke of his experiences in the war; and when he did, it was never of the horrors he must have witnessed.
Posted on: Mon, 04 Aug 2014 09:50:01 +0000
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