(Side 1) Born on Dec. 4, 1896 in Scarborough Township (Toronto). He recounts his youth and those he knew, some becoming prominent Canadians. A "ham" wireless operator in 1912, a member of the Wireless Association of Ontario in 1914. First employed as a Third Operator in the Great Lakes Wireless navigation system which in 1914 intercepted messages from a German wireless station on Long Island, N.Y. until the U.S. government forced the station to close. In the summer of 1915 he was a ship's wireless operator on the Great Lakes. Enlisted on his nineteenth birthday in the Canadian Engineers, Signals Branch. Overseas in Apr. 1916 and there became a telegraph operator. (20:00) By mid-June he was in France with the 3rd Divisional Signals, then was posted to Canadian Corps headquarters where he joined the wireless section. Describes a poison gas attack, the early gas mask, and the slight damage to himself by phosgene gas. During his experiences of trench warfare, when attached to infantry battalions, they carried very simple portable crystal wireless sets on their backs. Comments on the front at Vimy Ridge where they experienced heavy shelling and were buried in a collapsed dugout, but were fortunately rescued after some time. He was sent back as "walking wounded" in Jan. 1917. He returned to Vimy in time for the battle, but spent his time in a wireless dugout. The interview returns to reminiscences of the Marconi station in Kingston in 1914 and the burning of the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa (1916) where he helped to save some library books. (45:00)