A Canadian sniper in Ukraine: Numbers, deaths and homecoming
STORY BY STEPHEN J. THORNE
It was early morning and sniper Wali, his Canadian compatriot and two Ukrainian soldiers were in a trench at the far end of a wooded windbreak separating expansive farm fields in eastern Ukraine.
Huddled among leafless trees, they were essentially the point men in the defence of a village on the approaches to the strategic city of Mariupol. Russian troops and tanks were staging a measured advance across the fallow fields on three sides.
In May1915, Canadian troops entered their second major battle of the First World War, on the western front near Festubert in the Artois region of France.
On May 9, the British had suffered 11,000 casualties attacking nearby Neuve-Chapelle. A week later, Field Marshal Douglas Haig ordered another attack involving two Canadian brigades, hoping for a breakthrough.
Royal Canadian Legion, US Branch #25 