Alexander Ross Robertson

A first cousin, per the family tree: Alexander Ross Robertson (22 May 1888 – 1942), who went by his middle name "Ross," the same convention the diarist himself followed (Andrew Murray Robertson, known as "Murray"). His own Canadian Expeditionary Force service file survives at Library and Archives Canada (B8349-S014). First appears in the diary March 5, 1918, as a letter received; a March 16, 1918 letter to Doris fills in the detail, reporting "Cousin Ross" had turned up in France with the 20th Canadians, having had to revert to Lieutenant to get overseas after a "cushy billet in Blighty." He then visits in person, per the diary's March 27, 1918 entry ("Ross blew in this aft from Army school" on his way to rejoin his battalion) corroborated three days later by a March 30, 1918 letter describing the same visit: "I saw Cousin Ross from Toronto the other day... on his way back from the base where he had been to school... waiting for a train to take him on to his battalion which was in the line." Wounded by shrapnel in the arm by late April: the diary's April 26, 1918 entry ("Ross as roaming around with only a shrap wound in the arm, lucky dog") is echoed almost word for word in a May 6, 1918 letter ("roaming at large once more, having copped a cushy one in the arm from a bit of shrapnel"). Not to be confused with the diary's other, unrelated "Ross" mentions: Bruce Ross, a fellow officer from the 1st Divisional Engineers social circle in 1917, or the differently-tagged "Ross Taylor" and "Ross of 3rd A.T.C.", neither of which fits this family thread.