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One of the 60,000 Canadians who did not return from the First World War, Bernard Trotter's poignant poems were published after his death. His letters home revealed idealism spirit of dedication which led him to volunteer and also showbiz family in Canada, deeply engaged, albeit from a distance, and the faraway conflict. In the fall of 1915, the British war office, contacted the University of Toronto for help in recruiting students for the officer corps of the British Imperial Army. One of the 50 young men who answered the call to service was Bernard Freeman Trotter, a 25-year-old graduate of McMaster University was just beginning advanced studies at the University of Toronto. He left his studies and his family in Toronto in March 1916, and before the year was out, Trotter had successfully completed his training with both the Canadian and British Armies in England, and was on his way to the Western Front as a junior officer with the Leicestershire 11th. Trotter always had been a good correspondent; he continued to keep in contact with his family throughout his travels, his training and travails. On Sunday afternoon, 6 May 1917, Trotter found time to complete another letter home. The following evening, a shell exploded close to the 26-year-old assistant transport officer. He dropped from his horse, killed instantly. Bernard Trotter like more than 60,000 other Canadians, never returned home from the Great War. He was remembered. The young man's family and friends honored his sacrifice by collecting and publishing his poetry. Although Trotter complained that his poetic Muse could not flourish among the interruptions and lack of privacy of military life, the best of the poems which appear here, were written overseas and establish his reputation as one of Canada's war poets.