My Father Frank S. Iriam signed up the same day as Germany declared war in 1914. <br>In Valcartier they announced that a sniper group was about to be formed. Frank signed up immediately and this book describes some of his experiences as a sniper. <br><br>Do to some prior military service in Halifax he had been promoted to Sargent in Kenora and he maintained that rank through out the war. <br>Frank describes the fact that he was able to mentally beat the shell shock he was starting to suffer all on his own.<br><br>He spent three years seven months in the front lines being wounded by machine gun fire during the battle of Ameins where the allies chased the Germans out of their trenches never letting them dig another.<br><br>After a lengthy recovery period he got back to Kenora, his job as a Railroad Engineer and canoeing his favorite pass time.
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Glenn Ph.D. Iriam. In The Trenches 1914-1918
Prologue
Introduction
Canada
Crossing The Atlantic
England
Scotland
England
Crossing The Channel
St. Nazaire
Hazebrouck
Plug Street Wood
Labutillere
Death Valley
St. Julien
Relieved From The Front Line
Hospitalized
The Duck’s Bill
The Messines Front
First Leave To Blighty
Return To The Messines
Ypres Salient
Training for The Somme
The Somme
Lens
Suchez
Vimy Ridge
Paris
Hill 70
Lens
Passchendaele
Leave in Swansea, Wales
Arras
Scarpe
Telegraph Hill
Scarpe River
Amiens
To The Coast
Coalition House, Dorchester Dorset
Epsom Downs, London England
Set Sail For North America
Returned To Canada
Return To The Lake Of The Woods
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Frank S. Iriam, 1906
He left school in the fifth book to go to work at a sawmill where he lost a part of a finger on his left hand.
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The night following my trip to the bean patch was wet with a fine drizzle of cold rain. Knobel planned to make a long patrol led by himself. Two nights before we had placed a ladder across the creek about 100 yards from our front. This had been used as a bridge for two nights. Some of us had suggested that it be removed each night after using it so that it, and the path across, would not show up to the aero planes in daytime and give away our line of travel, but this had not been done. Now on the third night we had just got nicely over and started along the old ditch when we heard a noise ahead. A large stone or lump of mud fell into the ditch with a splash and following this we could hear the clump, clump, and swish, swish in the grass as someone hurried away from there. Somebody was evidently watching our bridge for a purpose. We carefully crept forward a bit to where we could get the light showing over higher ground on each side and in front. On this work you hug the low places and any movement can be detected in the light at the skyline around you. We began to size things up. On either flank as far as you could see there was the usual amount of night rifle fire by the sentries and the usual amount of flare lights rising and falling. But in the section occupied by the cabbage patch or bean patch there was neither night firing or flares. Only silence, darkness and a thickening drizzle of rain. Then the search light started to sweep back and forth, away to the north back on the south, but it always paused for a space when it came to our sally port in the wire and our ladder bridge over the creek. We put two and two together deciding that the big German patrol that was in ambush for us that night could have the rain all to themselves and we went elsewhere that night.
Later on we lost one of our scouts by rifle fire while out on the left flank of our battalion on night patrol. Our left flank was in what they call a re-entrant or a deep concavity in our line and the unit next on our left had somewhat of an enfilade view of our left sector. I believe it was the 7th Battalion in there at that time. We had notified platoon commanders and sentry groups of the patrol but through some mistake the post of the 7th opened fire on us and W. Naylor one of our number, was hit in the groin by a rifle ball and due to the severity of the wound died a few hours later.
