Jack Munroe was already a legend before the First World War. His Heavyweight bouts against the world’s best, Champion J.J. Jeffries and Jack Johnson had made him a celebrity. Munroe’s mining and prospecting exploits only added to his reputation. But when war was declared he gave it all up, went to Ottawa and enlisted in the PPCLI. And when he went to war he brought along his faithful collie, Bobbie Burns (Eric Knight’s inspiration for Lassie).

Mopping Up! Is Munroe’s personal story, thinly veiled as through the eyes of Bobbie Burns, of the war in its early stages from the euphoria of enlistment to the grim battlefields of Ypres. Munroe was known for his mighty right hand, but in June 1915 a German sniper ended the war for Canada’s great heavyweight. Mopping Up! Originally published in 1918, is a patriotic, yet melancholy memoir of the war. It deserves its status as a Canadian Classic of the Great War.

by Lieutenant Jack Munroe