The Story Behind the Story

This book began as a deeply personal journey, a search for the story of my grandfather, Frank Baker. I started with official records of the 65th and 20th Battery Artillery Units of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, hoping to trace his footsteps through the First World War. What I found were only scattered fragments: names in faded ledgers, brief mentions in hospital notes, and lists of distant battle sites. More often, there were only blank spaces, silent gaps where memory should have been. The Western Front swallowed not just lives, but the stories and voices of those who served.

I was struck by how much of Frank’s story had vanished. I couldn’t let that be the end. I didn’t want his life to become just another blank space in the pages of history. So, when the facts faded, I turned to imagination and empathy, striving to bridge the gap between what is known and what might have been. The details in these pages are drawn from war records, medical files, and the documented battles he passed through. But in the silences, I tried to reach back in time, not to alter history, but to offer my grandfather a voice and presence to tell a story of what he may have experienced during the War.

Frank Baker may never appear in history books as a hero, but to my family and me, he always was. His quiet strength, resilience, and the life he built after the war shaped us in ways that still echo through generations. Out of respect for privacy, I have changed his last name and the names of many in the Baker family.

This book is a tribute to my grandfather, and to every soldier whose story has gone untold or whose memory has faded with time. While some details in these pages are imagined, the love and admiration that inspired them are deeply real. This is my humble attempt to honour a legacy that runs deeper than any official record, a legacy of courage, compassion, and quiet heroism that deserves to be remembered.