In December 1917, Robert Lester Harper wrote to his wife Mabel in high spirits. He was on leave from his duty as a sergeant in the 128th Battalion in London. But even there, far from the front, the war was foremost on his mind—especially the need for more men to join the fight.

“I voted for conscription just before I came on leave,” he wrote. “We received two hundred and fifty reinforcements lately and we needed them. On Aug. 21 we had one hundred and sixty casualties, and at Passchendaele on Nov. 6 we had two hundred and eighty. I think it is up to Canada to give us all the reinforcements we need.”

Robert Lester Harper didn’t wait to be drafted. He volunteered with a couple of pals in Edmonton on January 1, 1916, this despite being a married with a young child at home. He was placed in the 138th Battalion but in a letter to Mabel he described the distress of losing friends when the battalion was broken up into four separate groups in England.

A veteran of "Vimy Ridge" Ridge, he earned a Distinguished Conduct Medal, rising to the rank of lieutenant by war’s end. In the same letter, he mentions that the Canadians had earned a brilliant reputation for their ferocity in battle.

“Anything we are given to do, we do it and hold it, which is the hardest thing. We are what is known as good storm troops.”

Following the war, he returned to Edmonton, where Mabel’s family lived, and worked as a provincial assessor. He died in 1987.

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.