Vimy Day

On 9 April 1917 Allied troops launched an attack on Vimy Ridge. At the end of the day, 2,399 troops of the Canadian Expeditionary Force lay dead. Out of a total of 12,685 fatalities in the four-day period to 12 April in France 3,595 served with Canadian forces.

On this anniversary, the 103rd, the next #AncestryExtra session on Facebook will be hosted by Ancestry® ProGenealogists’ military expert Simon Pearce and focus on researching those who served in WWI. That's at 12 pm ET. Also, for 24 hours, Ancestry is opening up a number of military record collections for free access.

Was anyone with your name among those who died? Check at cwgc.org.

Today I remember Ernest Howe Reid of the 78th Battalion, Canadian Infantry whose name is among the 11,241 on the Vimy Memorial. I previously mentioned him in 2007 here. Additional information found is that aside from his son James Howe Reid, who died as a Pilot Officer in the Second World War, another son Robert Reid served with the Merchant Navy and survived the war.