Every year, on 11 November, dignitaries and veterans gather in northern France and Belgium to commemorate the tens of thousands of Canadians and Newfoundlanders who fell there. Meanwhile, more than 700 miles to the north, a much smaller group will gather – with no less solemnity – in the small town of Rothes on the banks of the River Spey. They are here to remember 23-yearold George White from Ontario, 24-year-old Joseph-Henri Berthiaume from Montreal, and 30-year-old Garfield Eby from Edmonton.
What were they doing here in this beautiful, but comparatively obscure, corner of the British Isles? It is fair to say that if people knew their story, they would never again view the epic movies, or the dramatic newsreel footage, of the GreatWar in northern Europe in the same way.
By the spring of 1916, the war was not going well for the Allied powers. Beginning in February of that year, the longest (and most deadly) land battle in history, the battle ofVerdun, anticipated the ghastly stalemates of the battles of the Somme, Arras and Ypres. At sea, the terrifying spectre of U-boats stalked shipping lanes and seriously threatened to choke vital supply
