‘THROUGH HADES’
Three generations of soldier’s family head to Vimy
Dudley Bertram Fryer called himself one of the “fortunate survivors of this titanic struggle” when he wrote to his brother days after the Battle of Vimy Ridge.
“Have been through Hades of late, but am still kicking,” he wrote in a letter addressed April 17, 1918.
The 24-year-old soldier lived through the brutal Easter Monday battle that would become a defining moment in Canada’s First World War effort against German troops. More than 3,500 Canadian soldiers died in the successful campaign to take the seven-kilometre ridge.
The 100th anniversary of the battle will be commemorated at the Vimy Ridge memorial in France Sunday, with thousands of Canadians expected to attend, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Three generations of Fryer’s family will be there to pay tribute to his struggle, including his 82-year-old daughter, Barbara Fonteyne.
Fryer, who served with the 2nd Canadian Mounted Rifles as part of the 3rd Canadian Division, rarely spoke about his wartime experiences, Fonteyne wrote in an email to Postmedia while en route to France Wednesday.
“I remember he mentioned that he had lost his best friend in the war while they were in combat side by side. This loss saddened him greatly,” Fonteyne wrote.
“As a dad he was always a positive, kind and humble person.”
Fryer returned home to Vernon, B.C., when the war ended and went on to live a peaceful life managing orchards in the Okanagan with his wife and three children.
“(He) found out that his mom had passed away just before he got home ... he was so sad to have not be en there for her,” Fonteyne wrote.
Rhonda Hartman said her grandfather’s records showed that he enlisted in 1914 and was discharged after the war ended — he was wounded twice by gunshot wounds.
“Both times he was wounded, he was sent right back out,” Hartman said in an interview in Edmonton Tuesday.
“He was proud of how he served Canada … but at the same time he saw a lot of awful things.”
In his letter, Fryer signed off after telling his brother “stay where you are for a while, believe me.”
“I think it speaks volumes about how it was an incredibly difficult war for these guys,” Hartman said.
The family is wearing commemorative badges bearing Fryer’s photo in uniform while they travel to memorial sites in France and Belgium.
Hartman said the trip is an opportunity to reflect on the sacrifices soldiers continue to make.
“It’s realizing that the people that served our country are doing something bigger of themselves,” she said.