Soldier’s Diary

Donald Macpherson was assigned as gunner with the 9th Battery, C.F.A., in January of 1917, and was present at the battles of Vimy Ridge, Hill 70, and Passchendaele, earning a Military Medal at the latter.

His five small diaries, reproduced in their entirety here, comprise an engagingly articulate account of his wartime experiences, resolutely focusing on friends, family and duty rather than the horrors of war. A striking feature is the way he was able to make contact with his brothers, all officers in three different Douglas in the 16th Canadian Scottish, Ewart in the Royal Flying Corps, and Ross in Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry. All four of them were together in London on New Year’s Day, 1918. Donald was posted to the Battle of Amiens, where he was wounded, and he spent the remainder of the war in military hospitals. Demobilized in 1919, Donald returned to his teaching career in Toronto.

With a foreword by noted naval historian Ken Macpherson, who provided the diaries and other details of his father’s war story.