Bruce Anderson Smith enlisted from Winnipeg, Manitoba on March 8, 1916 and joined the 203rd Battalion. He was transferred to 2nd Battalion, Canadian Railway Troops because of his skills with draft animals, which he learned in his grandfather’s blacksmith shop in Scotland and his step-father’s farm in Canada. This was a construction corps, which he described in one of his letters as, “Called upon to build narrow gauge railways to supply field guns with ammunition and take provisions to the trenches.” Smith noted that this was a dangerous job. “A real suicide job when Fritz locates us at work.”

He returned to Canada in 1919 and farmed in Saskatchewan. He married Ellen “Nellie” Wyatt in July 1924 and took up his own draft horse farm, named Braehead in the nearby Maitland district. They had three children, Ken in 1925, Don in 1926 and Yvonne in 1928.

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He died September 15, 1958.