Names are often inconsistenly used in the official documents that have survived from the First World War.  In this particular case, Louis Rodolph seems to have usually used only Louis.  This is how he signs his enlistment papers, but later he changes to R.L. and even L.R.  Jean Pilon, a genealogist from Montréal, could not find a record of a Louis Rodolph in Ottawa, but he did find a Louis Pilon with a mother named Malvina and a sister Emma, who was born on the 18th of July 1894, rather than the 20 or 24th of July 1894.  This is the same person who would leave his job as a butcher to become a soldier in the Canadian Expeditionary Force.

Upon enlistment with the 77th Battalion, the Governor General Foot Guard or the Ottawa Regiment on the 1st of September 1915, he resided at 615 Booth Street in Ottawa.  Today you can only find a sprawling complex of government buildings and parking lots.  Yet Louis and his family lived there for some time before he left for Europe where he was eventually to participate in a battle of national significance for our country, for Canada.  He participated in and was wounded at the battle of Vimy Ridge on April 10, 1917.  By then he had been transferred to a different unit, the 27th Battalion, known as the City of Winnipeg Regiment.

At Vimy Ridge, Louis Rodolph Pilon received a shrapnel wound across the upper part of the biceps muscle of his right arm.  He also received a slight wound to his left shoulder.  Neither of these wounds caused him any disabilities, but four days later, on April 14, 1917 he had been brought to a hospital in England for treatment and eventually discharged from hospital on June 11, 1917.  He would rejoin the 27th Battalion in France as batman to Lieutenant H.R. Rutherford.

While he returned to Canada and was demobilized in May of 1919, he reinlisted for a brief period between June and September of 1919, serving at the Headquarters of the CASC in Ottawa.

Basic information about Louis Rodolph Pilon
Important events of Louis Rodolph Pilon's military carreer, as recorded in his personnel file
The account of the action in which Louis Rodolph was wounded on April 10, 1917
Louis Rodolph Pilon's ancestral line and his family (sisters & brothers)