Search The Archive

Search form

Collection Search
Date: October 18th 1916
To
Mrs. Mackenzie
From
E.P. Winslow
Letter

Bank of Montreal,
Winnipeg, Manitoba.

October 18, 1916.

Dear Mrs. Mackenzie,

You ask about Hugh, and I am thankful to be able to tell you he is well and serving the King. He was severely wounded on the 15th of July last at the Western Front, losing his left hand and several inches of the arm. His recovery was wonderfully quick as nine days after being struck he walked from a hospital in London to a nearby hotel to take lunch with his mother. Soon after this he began to play lawn tennis, and was able to put up a very good game, and not long after was practising swimming with one hand.

When he sought work again, after a short holiday, he was put off by the Admiralty with the advice to take two or three months leave - this he did not wish to do, and he has been for some time not carrying dispatches, I think within the kingdom. to the surprise of the Admirality, he has been passed as fit for the trenches by the Medical Board, and because of this Hugh has a feeling that he should go back to the front line rather than continue in his present duty.

You may remember that he went through the Dardanelles Campaign with the exemption of the first landing. He was wounded in the face and head by a bomb on an occasion when, I think, every other officer in his Company was killed, and his battalion practically annihilated. Invalided to Heliopolis, he soon returned to his duty and, after a time, suffering from septic poisoning from a very slight cause, was invalided to Malta. Returning again to the Dardanelles after an absence of some weeks, he was present at the evacuation of Cape Helles, describing which he said there was great competition to be the last to leave, and he was one of the few lucky ones who were left till the last to set traps for Mr. Turk. He was sent to Lemnos, thence to the east of Salonika, and in the spring of this year was moved with his battalion to the Western Front.

Please remember me to Mr. Mackenzie, and with kindest regards.

I am,
Your sincerely,

E.P.Winslow.