On the eve of his departure for France in the summer of 1916, Stephen R. Heal and the rest of his Canadian division, the 72nd Seaforth Highlanders, were assembled in an outdoor auditorium for a speech by British Prime Minister David Lloyd George. “What magnetism he had, no loud speakers, but we heard and hung on every word,” wrote Heal in his memoirs. Heal had left his home of Vancouver that spring, and spent months training with other Canadians in England.

As an enlisted NCO, it was hard for Heal to envision how his tour would unfold. It was however, a sojourn across many of the major battlefields in the Western theatre. Heal first saw action at Ypres. At the Somme, he went over the trenches with his unit. “We went over, some six hundred odd strong and just had about two hundred fifty of us left,” he later wrote. “I lost most of my friends.” Later, as a Sergeant, he led soldiers at Passchendaele —the images of the battle disturbed him. “It was as bad, probably worse than the Somme, no writer can describe it, or pictures portray it,” he wrote.

Heal would later admit that at the time of his service, he questioned the competence of the High Command. Particularly at Passchendaele, he struggled to see meaning in the loss of life. It wasn’t until later that his opinions become tempered. “Mutiny among French troops, on a large sector of the front, endangered the whole line,” wrote Heal of his unit’s sacrifice. “Our high command was forced to keep the German army engaged, so they could not take advantage of the trouble.”

Heal would return to Vancouver in February of 1919. Years later, he would write in his memoir that he didn’t dwell on the events of the war after his return, instead seeing them as an inspiration to pursue a happy new chapter of life with his waiting girlfriend —and future wife.

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.