ARTICLES

BIOGRAPHY
fighting…but the boys are still smiling and happy.” Because of the deafness, he was now a
“company runner…not a bad job as it consists of carrying messages” and guard duty. 12
The 12 November 1918 edition of the Eastern Oregonian announced that Joe had been wounded
again. This time he had been shot in the left foot. The newspaper lamented that Joe had been
shot on 1 November—ten days before Germany’s surrender—and noted that he had “had many
Source: http://theywerethere.canalblog.com
A Canadian wounded while crossing the remains of the lock in the Canal de l’Escaut, being attended to by First Aid men,
1 November 1918
miraculous escapes” in his two years at the front with the Canadian army. He was still in the
Canadian army and had “the record in his company for being the first man over the top.” 13
Hospitalized in a Canadian field hospital in Nuns, France, he disclosed that the wound was
from a machine gun in the Battle of Valenciennes. It was a “swell hospital. The sisters [nuns
who were nurses] seem more like angels than real people after what we have been through
lately…it sure is grand to be between white sheets again,” he marvelled. 14
The day before Christmas, Grover related that Joe was out of the hospital and writing, “my
wounds are all healed up now and I don’t think they will ever bother me again.” He was upset
that he had gotten shot in the foot so near the armistice because he was missing “the march to
Germany… [but] it sure is great the war is over and we do not have to spend another winter
in the trenches.” He was amazed, he wrote Grover, “to have come through this war as lucky as
I have. It has sure been terrible but we have done what we came over to do and the great
principles for which we have been fighting have triumphed.” 15
WWW.ARMY.FORCES.GC.CA/CAJ 111