Feature Letter of November 16th, 2025
Cobourg World
Received your letter and papers just before I left for the line, also another bunch of papers last night when we moved back. Well, I have had my first experience up the line. It is a little different from what I expected it to be, but no person can imagine what it is really like until he sees it for himself. It is no picnic, believe me. No doubt you have seen in the papers what the Canadians did last week. Well, we were in that, and right in too. (Censored.) The papers have given us great praise and it was hard earned at that....We had to go through a trench part of the way that was filled with dead Germans, right up to a salient, This was my first night up and believe me I could not see any pleasure in it that night, When we were going out again, Heiney started a nice little bombardment and the shells were dropping around us like hail. We were going overland at the time so had to make for the nearest trench we could find. The trench was about eight feet deep and we went head over heels. I had just picked myself up when another chap came tumbling in and knocked me down again, then we were both sitting in the bottom looking at each other, After a while he let up and we got back to our lines again.
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As we move away in time from past conflicts and as our veteran population declines, it becomes increasingly difficult for Canadians to understand the sacrifices that men and women made, both on the battlefield and on the home front, during wartime. The Canadian Letters and Images Project has been sharing their stories, and Canada’s story, for the past quarter century.
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