A Great War Veteran Revisits The Old BattlefieldsISBN: 1 896979 11 4 PB 269 pp $ 24.95
Published by C E F Books. Edited by Norm Christie.
Will R. Bird served in the 42nd Battalion, the Black Watch of Canada on the Western Front from January 1917, until the end of the war, and was awarded the MM on the penultimate night of the Great War at Mons.
The book is complied from a series of magazine articles, originally written for Macleans Magazine in 1932, and based on Birds travels to the old battlefields in 1931. His journey starts in Ypres and ends at Mons, taking in many towns and villages en route.
To the modern day visitor, Birds description provides an insight into a vanished world. The towns, villages and countryside still bore many scars of war. Many old dugouts remained, and caused trouble when they subsided. The towns and villages were gradually being rebuilt; Bird describes new concrete houses and villas painted in gaudy colours, interspersed with old wooden or corrugated iron structures, and many old wartime signs.
Along the way, Bird meets many fellow travellers and also many veterans who have settled permanently in the battle zone. Like many returning veterans, Bird had felt rudderless. The journey probes into a world of memories, many painful, yet seems to be therapeutic as well. I am sure that many of the original readers of the articles would have gained great comfort form reading them.
Not surprisingly for a Canadian veteran, Bird spends some time at Vimy. His description of the wartime, and what he finds, is fascinating. The great memorial is under construction as he visits.
Bird went out of his way to seek out people in the villages and towns with memories of the wartime. Sometimes, it is in Estaminets, at others in places where he was billeted. Occasionally, he will come across new residents with no wartime memories, but mostly, he is able to recount stories, some of them seemingly far fetched of the wartime years, others plausible.
The book contains many photographs, many contemporary, and many taken by Bird during his travels. It is fascinating to compare the photographs taken by Bird with modern day views, and to see how much the areas have changed in the intervening years. There are a few brief end notes to each chapter, written by Norm Christie, and some explanations about the structure of the Canadian Army and their major battles. I recommend this book to everyone.
Reviewer: Michelle Young
