Shaw, Harry letter - handwritten     43 Union Avenue Dear Sir Hoping you will excuse me for my delay in answering your request for my service but I haven been taken out of town and I have to take this, my first opportunity, I enlisted in New York for the British as I was unable to pass the medical escamination [sic] for the U.S. Army, I was doing my first stages of training at Halifax Nova Scotia at the time of the explosion there, and [overcan?] in the ill- fated convoy that the Tuscania was lost attached to the British 39th Division and when through heavy losses had to be broke up transferred to the 25th Division and [ten?] months prior to the Armistice was sent out to Russia with the first British troops to land there and served on most every sector of North Russia leaving there on the [21]st of Aug 1919, trusting these brief items will help you in your good work for the town, I remain Sincerely Yours Harry Shaw     NOTES The Halifax Explosion (Canadian Broadcasting Company) http://www.cbc.ca/halifaxexplosion/ The Halifax Explosion - Nearer My God to Thee (tcr2006. YouTube) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sb8zspOmK0 Halifax Explosion: The Aftermath and Relief Efforts (Nova Scotia Archives. YouTube) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PImhLMxTXc The Sinking of the Tuscania (Doughboy Center) http://www.worldwar1.com/dbc/tuscania.htm Operation Elope: The Allies Invade Russia, 1918 (HubPages.com) http://perrya.hubpages.com/hub/Operation-Elope-The-Allies-Invade-Russia-1918