The Canadian home front sent supplies to soldiers to ensure they had some comforts on the front lines and to remind them that the people of Canada supported them. A dispatch from London claimed the current supply of woolen goods from the Canadian home front would supply her soldiers, but coloured handkerchiefs, tobacco, pies, games, and newspapers, and especially socks, were still needed. Socks were always required, and given that trenches were often muddy and full of water, this is not surprising.
Gifts and packages such as these were much appreciated by soldiers. As a Canadian officer writing from the front claimed, the last batch of magazines sent was almost worth their weight in gold.
“Socks Still Required, Also Handkerchiefs,” Elmira Signet, March 25, 1915.
