A North York man discovered a unique link to a defining moment in Canadian history while cleaning his house last week — letters written by a solider a century ago, including one from the front lines of the Battle of Vimy Ridge.

Even though they’ve been in his possession for the past 42 years, Bob Chisholm, 86, said he didn’t pay much attention to his mother-in-law’s bundle of old mail sitting in his basement until last Thursday.

“I’ve been trying to get rid of junk (and) I came to all these letters and thought, ‘What am I going to do with all these doggone letters?’ ” said Chisholm, who’d inherited them when his mother-in-law, Annie Heron, moved to a nursing home in 1975.

“. . . I was looking at them and the date (on one letter) — April the 11th, 1917 — just hit me like a bomb.”

The Battle of Vimy Ridge, fought from April 9, 1917, to April 12, 1917, saw four Canadian divisions attacking together for the first time and capturing the ridge from German forces, succeeding where a French and British offensive had previously failed. The victory came at the cost of nearly 3,600 lives and thousands more injured.

In the three-page letter, written in pencil on off-white paper, a soldier named Harry Chalmers thanks Heron, whom he’d befriended back in Saskatchewan, for a letter she’d sent him earlier and describes the scene from the front line three days into what would be a four-day battle.

“Well it’s some sight to see a battlefield after the thing is over,” Chalmers wrote. “There is not a square inch of ground (that has not) been touched by shell fire. It’s just a mess of shell holes, barb wire and torn trenches. The most awful mess I ever seen. You can’t realize what it’s like. The front line and supports and third line of the Germans was pounded into a pulp. Such a noise I never imagined in my life. Bedlam was sure let loose . . . The sights around the field are terrible looking. I hope I don’t witness anything like it again.”

Chalmers also wrote that he’d “never seen such tickled men as some of (the German soldiers) were to be taken prisoner.”

“The (Canadians) began to collect souvenirs and even cut the buttons off (the German prisoners’) clothes. They were quite willing to give up anything,” he reported. “After they got back of our lines some of them made themselves quite useful, helped with the wounded and carried water. They are a motley looking bunch.”

“It takes a few lessons like this one to show him who’s who but when a fellow sees sights like this one it seems funny that humanity can’t get along without war,” Chalmers added. “There’s room for us all on this globe yet without this slaughter.”

In an earlier letter to Heron, dated March 18, 1917, Chalmers said he was witnessing the “great preparations” leading up to the Battle of Vimy Ridge. “There are miles of transport wagons and motor trucks on the roads all the time. The work is mostly done at night. It’s wonderful how a man gets around in the dark.”

He wrote about “lots of aeroplane fights,” including two days earlier where a damaged Canadian aircraft carrying an injured pilot and observer got caught in telephone wires as it landed.

“A bunch of us went over as they were letting them out of their seats,” he wrote. “The first thing one of them asked for was a cigarette. He had 3 toes shot off and was bleeding badly.”

The signature at the end of the letters match the ones on an attestation paper posted on the Canadian Virtual War Memorial under an entry for “Harry Alexander Chalmers,” originally from Smith Falls, Ont., and who enlisted May 2, 1916, in Saskatoon. He was killed on Sept. 27, 1918, and buried in the Cagnicourt British Cemetery in Pas de Calais, France.

A picture of Chalmers on the virtual memorial also bears a strong resemblance to a photo of a man that Chisholm found among his mother-in-law’s possessions.

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Thomas Weber, the chair of History and International Affairs at the University of Aberdeen and whose research interests include letters sent during the First World War, described Chalmers’ letter from the battle as “really interesting.”

“There’s this long-standing debate or discussion as to whether there was wartime brutalization and by the time of . . . the Battle of the Somme, (if) soldiers didn’t see the soldiers on the other side as humans anymore,” Weber said. “Here, we have an example that that clearly did not happen, that (Chalmers) very much sees them as humans and he very much imagines a world where he can get along with them.

“What I find really fascinating is how he talks about this total destruction and death and then still ends with the note, ‘There’s room for all of us on this globe yet without this slaughter,’ this kind of very positive hope . . . that something new may come out of the war.”

Chisholm, who remembers his mother-in-law as a “very, very quiet person, not one for loud conversation,” said she’d kept letter correspondence with several family members and friends who also fought in the First World War but never spoke about Chalmers — in fact, she kept his letters hidden in one of her dresser drawers under a newspaper liner. She died in 1979.

Chisholm said he plans to contact the Canadian War Museum or Library and Archives Canada to see if they’d be interested in taking the letters.

“Every day, I realize more and more how unique these two letters are,” he said. “They’re a real piece of history.”

Editor’s note: The original cutline for a photo that was published with the story had the incorrect date of when Annie Heron died. She passed away in 1979.

Broadcast coverage for the anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge:

CTV: On Sunday, April 9, Lisa LaFlamme anchors an anniversary special beginning at 9 a.m. on CTV, CTV News Channel and the CTV News GO app. She’ll be joined by CTV News’s Paul Workman, Daniele Hamamdjian and Todd Battis in France.

CBC: On April 9, CBC News will broadcast a live special hosted by Peter Mansbridge, 9 a.m.-1 p.m. from the Vimy memorial. The special will be livestreamed on cbcnews.ca.

CBC Radio One will have coverage hosted by Susan Bonner of the commemorative events, 10 a.m.-noon.