I'm going on my annual pilgrimage to the Holy City of Books tomorrow, so here are the next two days anniversaries in brief.

Wednesday 2 October 1918.

Western Front. The British take Armentieres, the French take St Quentin and Challerange.

Mediterranean. British and Italian warships bombard the Austrian naval base at Dueazzo in Albania rendering it unusable.

Thursday 3 October 1918.

Western Front. The British cature Le Catelet and Gheluw, the French Hooglede.

A Royal Navy submarine and two German destroyers sunk in a battle in the North Sea, 113 killed.

Ferdinand, King of Bulgaria abdicates in favour of his son who becomes King Boris III.

Prince Maximilian of Baden is appointed Chancellor of Germany.

Mark should have been back today. Maybe the Major could drop over and check to see that he hasn't got locked in the naughty book section again.

On second thoughts maybe we should send somebody else to do the checking. lol

Friday 4 October 1918.

Western Front. Further gains by the Franco-Americans in the Champagne sector and in the Argonne.

Macedonia. Significant gains by the Frenco-Itaians in Albania as the Austrians retreat.

The Japanese liner Hirano Maru sailing from Liverpool to Yokohama sunk by torpedoes from the U91 200 miles south of Ireland, 292 of the 320 on board killed.

The newly appointed German Chancellor, Prince Max of Baden, sends a peace note to the US President Wilson suggested peace negotiations based on his 14 Points issued in January. 

Saturday 5 October 1918.

Western Front. Many towns, villages and strategic points taken by the Allies including Beaurevoir, Montbrehain and the Moronvilliers Massif.

Macedonia. The Franco-Serbs take Vranje in Serbia from the Austrians. In Albania the Italians take Dibra.

Palestine. French naval forces land at Beirut and find it abandoned by the retreating Turks.

The Germans scuttle four old submarines as they retreat from the Flanders ports.

Sunday 6 October 1918.

Western Front. The British enter Fresnoy. Retreating German troops aet Laon ablaze before departing. The French push the Germans back along the Suippe river.

Macedonia. Continued Italian gains in Albania.

Palestine. The British enter Rayak and Zahleh in Syria where they find 30 aeroplanes burnt out.

The troopship HMS Otranto sunk in an accidental collision with another troopship HMS Kashmir off the west coast of Scotland. Of the more than 1000 on board 470 are killed, most of them US servicemen.

Monday 7 October 1918.

Western Front. The French retake Berry-au-Bac. General advance along the line.

Macedonia. With Bulgaria pacified decisions have to be made as to what to do with the Allied armies in the area. The Italians are occupied in Albania, but the Commander at Salonika suggests that his men be sent to southern Russia to assist the Whites. However the Supreme War Council decides that they will march east and invade Turkey via Thrace at the end of the month.

Palestine. The British occupy Sidon.

Russian Civil War. The Reds retake Samara on the Volga. In the north the Reds attack the Allied Intervention Army at Borok but are repelled. 

Tuesday 8 October 1918.

Western Front. Great British offensive on a 20 mile front between St Quentin and Cambrai, they advance three miles on day one and take over 10,000 prisoners. Along the entire Western Front the Allied armies take many towns and villages. The German High Command orders a partial retreat to the Hermann lIne.

Russian Civil War. One of the White's senior figures, Gen. Mikhail Alexeiev, dies at Ekaterinodar on the Volga. He had earlier served as C-in-C of the Russian Army in Kerensky's 1917 Provisional Government. 

Wednesday 9 October 1918.

Western Front. The Canadians enter Cambrai. The German Hindenburg Line has been entirely broken. Since the Allied offensive began they have taken 110,000 prisoners.

RAF bombers destroy a German ammunition depot at Metz, damage at over 1 million Reischsmark in a fire that burns for four days.  

Macedonia. Further progress into Serbia and Albania.

Palestine. The British capture Baalbek.

The Finnish Parliament elects Prince Friedrich Karl of Hesse, brother-in-law to Emperor Wilhelm II, King of Finland. 

In these recent posts you certainly can see the writing on the wall.

It's incredible how the Germans collapsed between March when they launched their Spring Offensive and August when the Allies went on the attack.

The elevation of the Kaiser's brother-in-law to King of Finland is interesting, the Germans were still empire building on the eastern front when in the west it was looking hopeless.

Cambrai had been gutted. Whenever the Germans retreated, they habitually destroyed what could not be looted and set fire to buildings and farms where they could. Canadian engineers rushed in to try to control the fires in the city, whose inhabitants were quick to tell them of the hard treatment they had endured through four years of German occupation. One soldier, Robert Shortreed, wrote in a letter home that the enemy “has taken everything he could have … He has done his best to stop us by blowing up all the main roads, bridges etc and what he could not take that would be of value to us he has destroyed. Stacks of hay were still smouldering and all the mines . . . were damaged as much as possible.”

The Germans had begun to seek an armistice, but their actions as they now faced defeat on the battlefield had embittered the French government and people and infuriated the Canadians. Why were the Germans still fighting when it was clear they had lost? And how could they have treated the French so badly? Bombardier Harold Simpson from Bayview, P.E.I., told his family that he was horrified by “the untold suffering … of homeless refugees, widows and orphans made destitute by the war” but now “liberated from hell on earth … Nearly all the girls and women from about 15 years up are certainly in some condition.”

“I would rather commit suicide than join the army,” 18-year-old Charles Hendershot wrote to his mother in Harrow, Ontario, in 1916, two years into the First World War. But, he said a few months later, there was the Royal Flying Corps: “there is very little danger of a flying machine falling…” and there was “excitement in a fighter.” Whether his mother’s concerns were eased was unlikely when he enlisted, and they certainly increased when her other son Warren, age 20, also joined the RFC.

Charles died in a crash in training in England the next year. From Britain, Warren wrote home to say “Don’t lose any sleep over me….This life is far too short to spend in worrying and moping. Just take everything as it comes.” In another letter, he said “I am not afraid of getting killed…. To die on the battlefield fighting for your country is one of the greatest honours there is.” Warren survived his training and became a fighter pilot in France, flying a Sopwith Dolphin fighter in the summer of 1918

In mid-September, he had one of his first encounters with enemy aircraft. “While you are more or less afraid all the time, yet you are not what you would call ‘frightened’….you always think you are better than they are.” Even when his squadron lost three pilots killed above the Canal du Nord battlefield, Warren still sounded almost enraptured: “I thought it was the greatest sport I had seen in a long time.” It must have been terribly exciting to fly if you were 21, even if you had begun to believe that you might die.

But after a dogfight pitted nine British fighters against what seemed like 50 Germans on October 30, less than two weeks before the Armistice on November 11, Warren’s private diary entry was much less enthusiastic. Five of his mates had been shot down. “How the four of us got back is a mystery. Everyone feels rather done in the rest of the day.” Later he added, “I was never in such a tight corner in all my life.”

Warren Hendershot was not untypical of the “knights of the air.” He learned that there was no chivalry in the air and only the crack shots survived the murderous fights. The Germans generally had better aircraft and more experienced airmen, but the Canadian and Imperial fliers persevered. Historians have calculated that the life span of a pilot in action was about ten weeks. Morale fluctuated, naturally enough in such circumstances, sometimes leading the overmatched to flee combat, but the squadrons had good leaders, and fliers fought for their wingmates—and themselves. There were medals and honours for the successful, boozy leaves in Paris or London in a sharp uniform with pilot’s wings on the breast, and there was always discipline enough to keep the squadrons flying. Some prayed, but most airmen kept going because flight continued to capture them, and because they ultimately hoped against hope that death would take the other fellow, not them.

Almost one quarter or 22,000 of the Royal Air Force’s flying officers were Canadians, and some 1,400 died in training or combat while another 1,500 were wounded or taken prisoner. Warren Hendershot survived the Great War and returned to southwestern Ontario, where he ran a Stedman’s five-and-dime store and raised a family. He had had his excitement. In the Second World War, he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force as an administrative officer. He died in 1983.

Thursday 10 October 1918.

Western Front. The British tale Le Cateau, Rouvray and Sallaumines, further gains along the entire Front by the Aliled armies.

Macedonia. The Serbs retake Nis in Serbia, the French occupy Pristina.

The Irish Sea ferry RMS Leinster carrying 780, including 500 soldiers, sunk by three torpedoes from the U123, 564 killed making it the worst disaster in the Irish Sea

“I would rather commit suicide than join the army,” 18-year-old Charles Hendershot wrote to his mother in Harrow, Ontario, in 1916.

You can well understand his sentiments Pete. It reminds me of the saying of that famous wit, Wistler, who said.... surely no man would join the Royal Navy, who could afford a piece of rope to hang himself. Unfortunately and disgracefully, virtually nobody in Britain has a clue to the monumental contribution Canada made to both the winning of WW1 and being the saviour of Britain in WW2 and ultimately, the winning of the war following that. Per head of population, Canada lost more than any other of the allied nations. Do you know, mention of Canada's loyalty during WW2 on remembrance day used to make my mam cry? really. I suppose you had to live through those dark days, fearing for you children and your country's survival to understand that. We used to laugh at her as young lads, when she'd go on a rant about Europe and the EU, shouting.... they're not our friends, we should stick by5 those who stuck by us. Canada Australia and New Zealand. There were others of course, but she only had eyes for them. Today we find that today's generations know precious little about the two wars, as left wing indoctrination forbids it now.

Friday 11 October 1918.

Wrestern Front. Further significant Allied advances, especially by the French and Canadians who take Iwuy forcing the Germans to retreat to yet another defensive line - the Hunding-Brunhild Line.

The Germans remove all ships and aeroplanes from the Channel coast.

Macedonia. The Austrians evacuate the main Albanian port city of Durazzo.

During the first and seconds wars Major the majority of Canadians considered themselves Royalists and there were long line ups to volenteer to defend King and country. You were actually looked down upon if you couldn't give a good excuse why you couldn't serve.

I grew up in a family that had served in both wars and had lost loved ones in both. As a kid I would ask both my parents about the war times and what they did during those times.

As you know my mother was a nurse in Brighton and her hospital was one of many that took in it's share of the Dunkirk Boys. These weren't your every day patients as many returned home alive but with horrific wounds. When she wasn't changing dressing she would be assisting in the hospital operating room where many limps had to be removed just to try and save these young mens lives. The sound of bones being cut through never left her even in later life. Some others had lost their complete sight so she would read their mail from home to them and write back to their parents and love ones. She said she had a hard time with some letters which would break her heart because some girl friends once they heard that their boy friend was now blind or had lost limps would sent Dear John letters to them. At night the terrible screams would start in the ward when some poor lad wake up thinking he was still on the beaches in France. Some would get to the stage of being violent when she tried to comfort them but would apologise the next day after other of their mates in beds around them would tell them what they had done. She would tell them it was alright and then tell them a joke or funny story to laugh if off.

Later in the war on her way to do her shift at the hospital she was the first person with any medical experient to arrive at the show when it had been bombed during a matinee. Kids were involved so I know that wasn't a high point in her life. She then loses her eldest brother who was more of a father to her than her own. He was a British Marine killed defending the airport in Crete. With the war still going on she sails to Canada in the first days of January 1944 aboard a converted French liner in rough seas. She shared a cabin with five other British war brides and their children. It sailed unexcorted because of the ships speed but zig-zagged all the way across. She arrives at pier 21 in Halifax with a young daughter and then has to take a train up to Toronto to meet my father's family for the first time.

My father joined the army the same week Canada declared war on Germany. His tank Regt was one of the 3 that made up the first divison. There first task was to aid in the defence of the south coast of England. He said that while doing it they sometimes would drive through a built up area then circle around it and do it again to give the impression to prying eyes that their force was much larger than it really was. When Dieppe comes up the 3 armoured Regts. drew straws to see which Regt would go. There was the Ontario Regt, the Three Rivers Regt and the Calgary Regt. The Calgarys Regt drew the short straw. They didn't have Churchill tanks so my fathers Regt gave them theirs and took I think my father said Rams from them. We know now how Dieppe turned out so probably a bessing. Then Shermans and off to sunny Sicily and Italy in short sleeve shirts and shorts. There malaria and dysentery greets them all.

The medical doctors there must have been a bunch of sick bastards because the treatment for dysentery was castor oil. He lost 3 tanks in a two week period. 2 to anti tank mines and one to a mortor round landing on the plastic explosives they had tied down on their back deck. He was sent back to the 3 Rivers Regt for treatment to his burns but took off in the middle of the night from there and told me he had crawled along digs and through woods until he got back to his own Regt. I asked him why would he do that and he said if you were in hospital you didn't get your mail and being married and having a young daughter in England then that wasn't good enough for him. Eariler in Italy while in the moutains which run down the centre of italy, they stopped in an area cleared and marked by their engineer to replenish. The engineers had layed mine tape on where you could walk but unfortunity two guys together stepped off it in the dark. It was a German jumping mine and when it went off it blew one guys legs off and the head of the other. He was close enough to the blast to get knocked off his feet and carried shrapnel in his head with him to the grave. They said after the war that it was too close to the brain to remove.

After Florence was taken the first divison boarded ships at Pisa and sailed to Marseille France and loaded their tanks on trains and travelled north through France to Belguim. From there they where halted and where tasked with helping to liberate Holland. They went up through Utrecht then down and up again through Nyjmegen Arnhem and finally ended up in Leewarden at the top end of Holland. By that time he said they were all sick of war but what encouraged them on was to see the way the Germans had treated the Dutch people. Small children who were nothing more that skeltons would come out to beg as their tanks came through a village. They would hand out all their rations to them not caring if they went without. They knew the war was almost over but the Germans were prepared it seemed to fight to their last. The Canadians took on the attitude if that's what you want then we will glady oblige you and they did. No quarter.

The wars effects soldiers in different ways and when he returned to Canada he couldn't stand to see any food not eaten or wasted. My sister when she arrived in Canada with my mother was spoiled by our dads family and food was plentyful here and if she didn't like something or didn't finish because she had filled herself with sugary tea first then that was alright. He also lost his love of anyone or anything Italian or German. Most soldiers came home and after time adapted back into civilian life but many didn't. They usually turned to booze to hide their memories but only ended shorting their lifes and ruining their families and loved one lives along the way. There are no real winners in any war. The only thing it does is destroy a whole generation in body and thought.

Saturday 12 October 1918.

Western Front. The French retake Vouziers. The German High Command reminds troops that a favourable armistice depends on a stern resistance in the field.

Macedonia. In Serbia the French take Mitrovitsa and Prisrend; in Albania the Italians take Kavaya.

The Allies recognize the Polish National Army as an ally.

Sunday 13 October 1918.

Western Front. The French liberate Laon and La Fere.

Macedonia. French troops take Pirot in Serbia.

Russian Civil War. The Allied army in Vladivostok behins its march westwards into Siberia.

Palestine. The British enter the port of Tripoli.

Monday 14 October 1918.

Western Front. Great offensive by Franco-British-Belgian troops between Dixmude and the river Lys, Roulers and Sissonne taken. Elsewhere US troops storm the Cote Dame Marie ridge.

Macedonia. In Serbia the Austrians evacuate Jakova.

Russian Civil War. An Anglo-Indian force expels the Bolsheviks from Dushak on the Persian border.

The Ottoman Grand Vizier (Prime Minister) Mehmed Taalat resigns, replaced by Ahmed Izzet.

A Czech government in exile is formed in Paris.  

Pete, post 19 is a very moving account. Your dad was quite a soldier. I got to the end and thought to myself, what on earth was he doing letting his son join the tankies?

He wasn't for sure too happy when he heard I was trying to join the American services so I could go to Vietnam. He told me that the States would never win that war right from the start. He said the Americans are making all the same mistakes that the French did and are trying to fight a gorrrilla war by conventional means. He ended up being right. He also use to say keeping Germany spit in two was a good thing because tthey were too strong and would try it for a third time if they had the chance.

As I mentioned Major war is a terrible thing will no real winners. It destroys whole generations. There is only one thing that has managed to keep us from repeating past mistakes and that is by us to staying prepared and banding together in a united front. This is why it unsets me so much when Trump has done nothing to strengthen the alliance but for some reason only finds petty fault with it on the world stage. The other side watches this and are always looking for cracks and sees it as a weakness.

No PB, the world has stopped seeing America as weak and I just don't know how you can possibley come to that decision.

Tuesday 15 October 1918.

Western Front. The British enter Menin and cross the river Lys. General advance by all the Allied armies along the Front.

Macedonia. Further Allied gains led by the Serbs as they steadily drive the Austrians from Serbia.

Palestine. The British take Homs in Syria.

No PB, the world has stopped seeing America as weak and I just don't know how you can possibley come to that decision.

No Mark is right Major. Not only has he turned his back on his friends an allies he has gone out of his way to suck up to every one that Nato considers the bad guys. The Russians have played him, the North Koreans have played him and now the Saudi's have played him. They by the way admitted today that the reporter was accidentally killed while interigating him. So it took 15 guys to do this interigation? The reporter goes there to pick up paperwork so that he can get married and ends up dead. We keep hearing that the Saudi's are trying to step into the 20th Century but don't say anything about how they are treating their own people. I think you owe Trudeau an apology. The only thing Trump worry's about is himself and the money he has invested in these corrupt countries. The American people are getting played like a fiddle and being accused of losing their once high standard of morals around the world. You don't have to believe me, you can go to any country in the world and ask the people there have their views of America changed since Trump came to office. 

The trust and stability that America once had now gone.

Wednesday 16 October 1918.

Western Front. The French retake Grandpre while the Americans break through the Kriemhilde Line. The British push the Germans back from the Douai-Lille front.

The Germans shell Dunkirk for the last time before being pushed out of range.

Russian Civil War. Clash between the British and the Bolsheviks at Zema in Siberia.

The Austrian Emperor Karl announces a People's Manifesto in which six nationalities will be granted self-government in a new Federation.