In 1917, brothers James Harold Maynard Dryburgh and Gilbert Edward Dryburgh were in Halifax, waiting for a boat to take them overseas when two ships collided and caused the biggest man-made explosion the world had ever seen. The Dryburgh brothers enlisted on September 29, 1917 to serve as medics in the Great War, but were instead ordered to stay in Halifax and help the nine thousand who were injured.

They later went to England to join the war but by that time, the war had ended. While overseas, their mother died of influenza. “They always felt upset that they left. Their mom was upset that they left,” said Bev Crandall, James’s daughter and Gilbert’s niece. “I remember my dad saying it was a sad time but even sadder when they came back.”

James returned to Knowlton, Quebec after the war and ran a grocery store until he retired. He married Ruby in 1922, and they had three children—Donald, Douglas, and Bev. He died in 1979.

Gilbert moved to Montreal and worked as a principal. He married twice—first he married Eva Sweet in the 1920s and then Ellen Eyre in the 1980s after Sweet died. Gilbert died in 1982.

Do you have an ancestor who served in the Great War? Submit their story and it could be included on this Great War Album website.