It is now over seven months since I last posted anything about Wilfred.  My intention had been to post every few weeks to tell the story of what he was getting up to in France as a member of the 19^th Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force.  However, life got in the way and someone inconsiderately decided to call a general election, which I felt the need to write about.  However, Wilfred has never been far from my thoughts and I have not been entirely idle on his account.  My main sources of information for this stage of Wilfred’s life are the War Diaries of the 19^th Battalion C.E.F.  I’ve have been working through these, a process that is rather more time consuming than I expected.  Like any technical document, it is one thing to read the words in front of you and understand their literal meanings, but it is quite another to gain the background knowledge to truly understand the full meaning of the documents.  A bit like reading the Bible – but that’s another story.

Although I last wrote about Wilfred as he was arriving in France, I’m going to jump ahead to July 1917 and will come back and fill in the missing months later on.  The 19^th Battalion was to be found on Sunday the 1^st of July 1917 billeted in Verdrel (roughly 20km West of Lens), where they had been since Monday the 4^th of June.  For most of that period they had been engaged in drill, training, sports and parades and on the 1^st July were parading at the sports ground in nearby Coupigny for a service in commemoration of the 50^th anniversary of the Confederation of the Dominion of Canada.  This relatively quiet period was brought to an end by orders for the Battalion to proceed to Marqueffles Farm (a few kilometres towards Lens) on Tuesday the 3^rd of July, to be in Divisional Reserve for the 2^nd Canadian Division, of which they were part.  On Sunday the 8^th of July they were ordered to move to Fosse 10 (precise location uncertain), still in Divisional Reserve.

On Tuesday 10^th July, the 19^th Battalion received orders to relieve the 24^th Battalion in the line.  They commenced their move at 9.00pm and completed the relief at 2.30am on the 11^th.  The section of the line they held was on the south-western outskirts of Lens.  Two men were wounded on the 11^th, with two killed and four more wounded on the 12^th.  In the early hours of Friday the 13^th of July, the 19^th Battalion was relieved by the 27^th Battalion and moved to Maroc for a couple of days as Brigade reserve.  In the early hours of Tuesday the 17^th July (the day on which King George V issued a proclamation changing the name of the British royal family from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor) Wilfred’s Battalion returned to the front line, in the same section they had held a few days previously.  They remained there until Tuesday the 24^th of July, when they returned to Fosse 10 as Divisional Reserve.  This is where they remained into the beginning of August.  During this time, they were “practising for the offensive over specially prepared ground at Marqueffles Farm”.  The main offensive that began at the end of July was Passchendaele, 60km north of Lens at Ypres.  The 19^th Battalion would eventually be drawn into that battle, but not until the end of October.  Wilfred would not be joining them.