“The Germans started to shell us and give us some hot machine gun fire. A lot of our men died that day. . . . I got a piece of shrapnel in the ankle but continued to carry on until 11 o’clock when I got two bullets in the left thigh [and] I fell into a shell hole full of water . . .”
Curtis Forsey’s description of the scene at Ypres, Belgium, September 29, 1918
Grand Bank Soldier consists of 51 letters that Lance Corporal Curtis Forsey wrote to his mother and father back home in Grand Bank during the 19 months he was on active duty in World War I. He saw action with the Newfoundland Regiment at Passchendaele Ridge, at Bailleuil, and at Kieberg Ridge, where, in late September 1918, he was wounded by two bullets and a piece of shrapnel. Forsey was recuperating in an English hospital when the Armistice was signed on November 11, 1918. After the war, he returned home to manage the family business, Patten & Forsey. Curtis Forsey died in 1993, a respected community leader and a man who lived a life of honour and integrity.

Bert Riggs, who was born in Grand Bank, Newfoundland, in 1954, holds a B.A. and a B.Ed. from Memorial University and a masters degree in information studies from the University of Toronto. He has been an archivist at Memorial University since 1989 and currently is head of the Archives and Manuscripts Division of the university’s Queen Elizabeth II Library. From 1997 to 2006, he wrote a weekly column for the St. John’s Telegram. He is a bencher with the Law Society of Newfoundland and Labrador and is chair of the board of the Resource Centre for the Arts, owners and operators of the LSPU Hall.

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