Canadian Scots Regiment

[Guest]

In memory of my grandfather Victor Harper which served as an early volunteer in the Canadian Scots and survived the first Chlore gas released on the Poel apelle (Ieper frontline) trenches. His regiment held this portion of the front between the British and &French dug in lines.

He joined the Imperial War Graves Commission in the 1930’s … in the works dept. engineering the Cemetery memorials of the great war.

I would greatly appreciate any information or know about the event of that day, April 22, 1915, when the  wind turned, flowing  from the facing German positions. My Son, 13 yo, has discovered a few WWI  combat artefacts passed trough generations from that very time and is curious about his brave ancestry.

 

 

[Foresterab]

So I was able to access  the 16th CEF - Canadian Scottish Battalion - war diary via archives Canada

https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/CollectionSearch/Pages/record.aspx?app=fonandcol&IdNumber=1883226&new=-8585738172633032063

If you flip through the PDF the events of April, 1915 are very well written and easily to read (a nice surprise).  The 10th CEF was immediately adjacent to the 16th CEF and may have more details in their records. 

This was also a quick history of the regiment:

http://www.canadianscottishregiment.ca/index.php?area_id=1015&page_id=1024

And I found an online version of the Regimental History that goes through the events in more details again:

https://electriccanadian.com/forces/The_History_of_the_16th_Battalion.pdf

 

I am however finding trouble locating your Grandfather as the only Victor Harper I get to come up was with the No.2 Tunnelling Company and not the 16th CEF.   There are about 350 Harper's listed in the Canadian WW1 records.   The online history of the 16th Battalion I found had a list of all members who had joined the regiment but I do not see any Victor Harpers listed (page 663 of the document) so I am at dead ends on that front now.

Happy reading,

foresterab