Scarlet to Khaki: Uniforms and Equipment of the Canadian Militia, 1885-1915

To enlist was, of course, an immediate solution to this problem. As a way out, it was especially attractive late at night as I laboured over the dull material of my texts. Interestingly, it was on the first day of February 1941, that my future artillery regiment, the 17th Field, was officially formed in Petawawa. Three and one-half years were to go by, however, before I wore the shoulder flashes of this regiment. Mine was to be a slow march up to the guns." This memoir, based on diaries and letters, traces the author's life from his early years during the first part of this century in southwestern Ontario's countryside until the end of WWII, an experience which, in his own words, left his memory "so scarred, so vulnerable, so rich."