Notes

About the Book

Bearing his medical discharge from the fledgling American Expeditionary Force after only four months as a trainee in the 1st Massachusetts Ambulance Corps, the author became one of thousands of American youths who sought adventure and validation by traveling North to offer their wartime services as members of the C.E.F. His account, finished in 1927, chronicles his brief U.S. Army experience, and more extensively, the next 20 months--from the signing of his Attestation papers in September, 1917 in Fredericton, N.B., to his release from active duty at St John, in May, 1919--as a Canadian soldier. Beginning with basic drill and an introduction to light artillery in Canada, he moved on to more intensive training in England, to become a charter member of an entirely new unit--the 12th (6-inch howitzer) Battery, 3rd Brigade, CGA.

Not just a record of combat in France, the story encompasses a totality of military life as it impacted the author and his close companions. He faithfully records battlefield and bivouac experiences, anecdotes of both legal and unsanctioned absences in five countries, the formation (and shattering) of close friendships, of the strange realization of his having been wounded, and gassed, and his consequent hospitalization and recovery. Following an unauthorized reunification with his Battery mates in Belgium, he describes the boredom of post war occupation, demobilization via Kinmel Park in Wales, his return to Canada, and finally, the long and eagerly anticipated, yet strangely abrupt and poignant emptiness that attended his return to civilian life. The author's highly personal and well documented narrative is enhanced by the inclusion of letters written home, numerous scans of photographs and memorabilia that survived his epoch journey as well as a number of original pen and ink drawings that complement his writing.

About the Author

Clifton Joseph Cate was born in Dover, New Hampshire, on October 2, 1898. In 1917, after graduating from high school in Sharon, Massachusetts, he served briefly in the U.S. Army until his unexpected medical discharge. Undeterred, he left for Canada where he joined--and for the next 20 months served--as a gunner in that nation's army. Returning to the United States, he spent the boom and bust years between the first and second world wars rearing a family and working at several occupations, but always remaining loosely attached to military life, working his way through the ranks until commissioned as a lieutenant in the National Guard. WW II saw him back in active service, where he achieved the rank of Lt. Colonel. After the war, he became the proprietor of a hardware store in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts until his retirement in 1960. Moving closer to his ancestral home in South Effingham, New Hampshire, he became actively engaged in local community affairs, serving as town clerk and as volunteer fireman, policeman and ambulance driver until his death in 1973.

Charles Cameron Cate was born in Springfield, Massachusetts on October 19, 1934, named after two of his father's closest comrades, thus representing three-fourths of the tight group known in the narrative as the "Big 4." He first observed military life during WW-II, in Alabama, where his father was stationed while training infantry replacement troops for the U.S. Army Air Corps. Toward the end of the Korean War, after a too brief flirtation with college he opted out of the Army Reserves and entered active duty, serving in the Military Police from 1953 to 1956, first stateside and then in Italy, Austria, and Berlin, Germany. He left the service and eventually completed his interrupted education attending the University of Massachusetts, and West Virginia University, and enjoyed a career in the biomedical research communities at Dartmouth Medical School, and at the nearby VA Hospital in White River Junction, Vermont. Retired, he now lives with his wife by the sea on the coast of Maine.