Introduction

Library and Archives Canada (LAC), in partnership with Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), presents Oral Histories of the First World War: Veterans 1914-1918.

The Web exhibition is based on the CBC's radio broadcast In Flanders Fields, a series of one-on-one interviews with veterans of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, which aired from November 11, 1964 to March 7, 1965. The website is organized into seven themes: Second Ypres, Vimy Ridge, War in the Air, The Somme, Trench Warfare, Passchendaele and Perspectives on War.

These first-hand accounts, which can be listened to or read via the retyped transcripts, provide the personal insights on the experience of war by one of the greatest generations that Canada has ever produced.

About Oral Histories of the First World War

The Web exhibition features a sampling of digitized radio recordings taken from the CBC's reel-to-reel audio tape of the radio broadcast In Flanders Fields. The original broadcasts were the inspiration for the themes for this website.

The transcript excerpts on this website are taken from the CBC's original typed documents for In Flanders Fields.

This website was produced by LAC in partnership with VAC www.vac-acc.gc.ca/general/ and the CBC http://archives.cbc.ca/index.asp?IDLan=1.

Acknowledgements

LAC extends its thanks to all of its staff and partners who contributed to Oral Histories of the First World War:

Our thanks go to David Hendricks at LAC for researching and writing the thematic texts for this site, and to Dr. Tim Cook, First World War historian at the Canadian War Museum, for providing advice on the texts' content.

We gratefully acknowledge the contribution of the Department of Canadian Heritage, whose financial assistance through the Canadian Culture Online (CCO) initiative made this work possible.

We also thank our partners, VAC and the CBC, for their support in making these interviews available to the Canadian public.