5th October, 1915.
It is a matter of sincere regret to me that the death of Colour-Sergeant Frederick William Hall deprived me of the pride of personally conferring upon him the Victoria Cross, the greatest of all Military Distinctions.
George R. I.
Mrs. M. Hall,
179 Spence Street,
Winnipeg, Canada.
The original letter of the above photo was sent to Mrs. Hall, together with the Victoria Cross, from King George. This medal, the first Canadian Victoria Cross awarded in this War, was won by Sergeant Major F. W. Hall at Ypres, April 24, 1915, who was shortly afterwards killed in another attempt to bring in a wounded man under rifle and machine gun. The story of his two brothers appears in this book.
TWO YEARS AND A HALF OF WAR
BY SGT. F. R. MUIR, NO. 81611, 10TH BATT., C.E.F.
SIX months before war had been declared I left New York City for Winnipeg, Canada, to play at the Winnipeg Theater and remained there until war was an established fact. On August 6, 1914, I enlisted as an American and joined the 32nd Battalion, C.E.F. After about five months' training, my battalion was ready and eager for service. From Halifax, Nova Scotia, we set out on the former Red-Star liner Vaderland bound for the battle grounds of Civilization, each and every boy of us keyed up to the highest pitch of patriotism. When we were three days at sea we ran out of cigarettes. A number of the boys had boxes of strong cigars with them and these they passed around quite generously. We smoked with the usual gusto and also the usual results. A ton of fish must have been fattened on food that was intended solely to strengthen us for the combat.
This experience, coupled with seasickness, made four of us refuse to wake up one morning, for which we were brought up before the major and sentenced to cleaning port-hole windows. We did not relish this labor and one port hole each was the extent of our efforts for half the day. In the afternoon we were set to peeling potatoes, cleaning the dishes and scrubbing the lower decks, which we finally accomplished after much pouting and grumbling.