It's not just thousands of youth heading to Vimy 100! Group leader Joan Medina is take a has a unique story to tell. She will be travelling with us to Vimy Ridge to commemorate the death of Lt. Claude Williams, along with 17 of his direct descendants. This is will be a family reunion like no other!

We asked Joan to share her family history with us:

In the pre-dawn of April 9, 1917, a 21-year-old medical student, Lt. Claude Williams, a member of the 6^th Brigade Canadian Machine Gun Battalion waited in the trenches for the signal to go “over the top” at the Battle of Vimy Ridge.  His Captain had been killed, and he won a coin toss with another Lieutenant to lead the platoon into battle. At 5:30 am that morning, Lt. Williams and his men were among 15,000 Canadian infantry who launched a ferocious attack that lasted four days and defeated the Germans along the ridge, where previous French attacks had failed with over 100,000 casualties.

Lt. Williams, his men and their guns successfully reached their target with no casualties. He won a Military Cross for his bravery, going on to fight at Hill 70 where he was gassed, then returned to Canada to earn his medical degree and to practice family medicine for over forty years in Georgetown, Ontario.

On April 9, 2017, 100 years later, eighteen of Lt. Williams’ direct descendants will stand at Vimy Ridge to honour his contribution and commemorate the sacrifices of so many in that pivotal battle which killed 3,598 Canadians and wounded 7,000 others.

“Our family will never forget his bravery and leadership,” says Joan Medina, one of the Lt. Williams’ four grandchildren travelling with seven of his great grandchildren, seven great-great grandchildren and their spouses. They are coming from all over Canada and from as far away as Japan, to mark the 100^th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge.

“We still have the metal trunk my grandfather had with him in France. It contains his uniforms, along with his tin helmet, canteen, and maps of the trenches, some of which still have mud on them,” says Medina.  “The many letters he sent home during the war were typed and gathered into a volume which is treasured in our family, and used extensively in Pierre Berton’s book Vimy.”

The family will gather at the commemorative ceremonies on April 9^th at Vimy as part of a six-day tour of other war museums, cemeteries and sites in the area.

To contact Joan, please email Shristi Gartaula, Senior Marketing Coordinator at sgartaula@explorica.ca.