Letters to Vimy

Dear Uncle Oscar…

I’m going to put a note on the back of our book to explain to readers what our correspondence inside is all about. It goes like this...

A hundred years ago a German shell dropped on Pte. Oscar French on Vimy Ridge and ended his adventures in the First World War. A century later author Orland French replies to Oscar’s real letters home to his mother and tells him, in his own sardonic style, how the world turned out after the horrific War to End All Wars.

Letters to Vimy is an excellent and highly entertaining personal guide to the birth and growth of Canadian nationalism out of that victory at Vimy. Sources abounded for this project, including a memorable conversation with a group of elderly German tourists on the steps of the Vimy Monument.

Your nephew in history,
Orland French