Blu1989 Posted September 1, 2015 #1 Posted September 1, 2015 Hi everyone. I dug into my safe today to pull out this old bring back from my great grandfather who served in WW1. He was a part of the Canadian Expeditionary Forces as a howitzer gunner. According to his paperwork from when he first signed up he enlisted in 1916 with the 71st overseas battery before being shipped over to France. From my understanding listening to my mom and my uncles he never talked about his time in the war almost to the point where no one even knew he had served in WW1. Also from what my mom remembers about him he never wore short sleeve shirts or shorts. She always attributed that to him being a "proper English gentleman" (he was originally from Lancashire England but immigrated to Canada shortly before the war). From the very few accounts he ever would divulge from his time in France he would only mention that he witnessed the largest explosion of the war and that afterwards he had been exposed to mustard gas from an artillery shell. I looked it up and the only battles that matched what he had told my mom and uncles was the Battle of Messines Ridge and the Battle of Passchendaele. He showed my uncles some of his burns from the mustard gas but never told a soul about anything he brought home, only that "there were terrible memories in his closet and that he never wanted to open the closet and relive them again". My great grandfather passed away in 1965 and left this rifle and bayonet in the care of one of my uncles. He gave my mom the rifle to store in our safe since he lived in a bad part of Louisiana and hid the bayonet in his house for whatever reason. When I started collecting rifles he gave me the bayonet to go with the rifle we had hidden at the back of the safe. I looked up what the rifle was and turns out it was a French Gras rifle from the 1870s along with an equally as old bayonet. I found the sling for the rifle at a gun show and even though it looks too new I plan on aging it appropriately. How my great grandfather obtained this rifle and bayonet I have no idea nor does anyone else in the family know. I hope you all enjoy this post as much as I do.
tarbridge Posted September 1, 2015 #2 Posted September 1, 2015 Great story. Thank you for taking the time to post your ancestors history. I will leave the thread up but locked...We are a US based forum.
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